This new AOA Decals sheet concentrates on two single aircraft, a pair of VMFA-232 F-4J Phantom IIs. One is from the 1969/70 deployments to Chu Lai and Iwakuni, while the second is from the 1972/73 deployments to Da Nang and Nam Phong. Typical of the day, these are camouflaged in matte light gull grey over gloss white with white control surfaces and radomes. As a point of interest, it was late 1972 when the navy switched to gloss light gull grey, but that only applied to new build planes and those that were undergoing rework. This one was undoubtedly in the matte finish.

This was the era that most USN modelers really like as the planes had a considerable amount of color (at least compared to today). VMFA-232 was not as flamboyant as some of the other USMC units, but still had some color with the unit's badge. This item moved from the fuselage to the fin during the times depicted. There are also differences in the size of the Marines marking on the aircraft. The set includes their new stencil sheet which was reviewed earlier, and here is a link so you can see what that looks like.

Kit instructions are very well done and provide a number of notes to help you with your choice of schemes so be sure to read through them. For kits the Tamiya one is pretty much it in this scale for most, though Revell did one that is not as well done as the Tamiya offering and availability is questionable on the Revell kit.

If you are a large scale builder of F-4s, you should add this to your collection.

May 2019

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Thanks to AOA Decals for the review sheet. You can get yours at this link

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