Fujimi 1/72 F-4EJ Phantom II

When it came time to start to replace its F-86s, the JASDF was looking for something much more modern than the Korean War veteran. It approached McDonnell-Douglas about license building the F-4E. An agreement was made and in 1971, two St.Louis built F-4Es with equipment specified by the Japanese were delivered. These were designated as F-4EJs and eventually a total of 140 were delivered with 138 of those built by Mitsubishi. The Phantom II served in the JASDF until 2021 when the last one was retired.

The first really well done F-4s in 1/72 were the Monogram versions of the C/D and J. Sure, Revell, Hasegawa and Frog, among others, had done Phantoms in this scale, but they were lacking in detail and many of them had shape issues. Not unbuildable, but not that well done either. The Fujimi series was the first semi-modern, engraved panel line series and they initially did all the USAF/USN variants, including the EJ. The kits are pretty easy to assemble and are devoid of the fiddly bits that one has to deal with when building the later Hasegawa kit. Of course this comes at a bit of a price, but it was one that I and tens of thousands of other modelers were willing to pay.

So let us look at some of the positives and not so positives about the kit. First thing one builds is the interior. This is fairly basic as 1/72 jets goes and relies on decals for both the main instrument panels and the side consoles. No raised detail as on the Monogram kits. The seats are generic MB Mk.4 shapes with no real detail. The interior fits atop the lower forward fuselage section that includes the nose gear well. This is then trapped between the two fuselage halve. The first thing the builder will notice is that there is no bulkhead between the two seats and the aft bulkhead is not tall enough to fill in the area behind the seats. Fujimi did make a fix on later boxings, but that was not retroactive. As such you want to buy a kit with a part number of G12 or higher to get the improved cockpit. This one is G4 so does not have that.

With the halves together the intakes, which have no real trunking, are installed. Wings are next. These are the hard wings before the additional maneuvering slats were installed. In fact, I don't think the Mitsubishi built planes ever got that upgrade. Tailplanes are slotted so one cannot use this kit for a basis of a USAF Vietnam era plane without replacing them. The kit also has a single piece canopy, which for me is not a big deal, but some like open canopies.

The kit does have wing inserts for the spot where on Navy planes there is a cat strop hookup. Landing gear is well done. For the main gear, the builder will need to cut apart the separate doors. The kit provides wing fuel tanks as well as USAF style pylons for the Sidewinders. Sparrows are also included as is a centerline tank and a jamming pod. There are flare/chaff dispensers to fit on the wing pylons.

Instructions in my kit are in Japanes, but the well done drawings are a good building guide. Especially if you have built a lot of these. Colors have Gunze paint numbers. The sheet provides options for just about every JASDF F-4 unit. Most of the options are in light gull grey over white. However, the box art plane from 302 squadron sports an experimental scheme for which one needs to do some paint mixing. Decals are probably still usable, but it would be wise to test one that won't be used first.

If you want a fairly quick build and don't have a ton of money to spend, I can recommend looking for one of these Fujimi kits either at a show or various on-line auctions as those people on e-bay are asking ridiculous prices for the kit.

January 2025

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