For many decades, the US military produced photo reconnaissance aircraft that were developed from extant types. In the early days it was little more than a guy hanging a large camera over the side of a multi-seat biplane. As time moved on, these cameras were mounted inside the airframe, usually in the belly of the plane and operated by the pilot or other crew member. Tactical reconnaissance was a modified fighter while strategic reconnaissance was some longer range aircraft such as a bomber.

In the jet age, there wasn't much room in the underside of the aircraft for cameras so they were mounted either in the nose or in some cases in blisters on the forward fuselage side in space that used to hold guns. Yes, tactical recon aircraft were often unarmed because of the space issues. The last specially built tactical recon jet in the US inventory was the RF-4C as later aircraft used camera pods. There was an RF-18A prototype, but that was not produced because of the use of pods. Nowadays, this job is handled by drones

When producing the full family of F-4 Phantom II kits in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hasegawa included the RF-4C and RF-4E. These did not generate the large number of limited editions, that honor going to the F-4E. This particular boxing is, I believe, the base boxing for those few follow-on kits.

It is not surprising the the majority of the sprues are identical to other F-4 kits, the main difference being the nose section that is carried on the 'O' sprue. Like the other kits in this series, the nose is separate from the rest of the fuselag and the cockpit is fairly well appointed for the time, but could benefit from the additional detail of aftermarket seats. You are provided some camera mounts for the nose and the kit offers both the original lower camera windows and the later, more aerodynamic section.

The kit provides rear Sparrow well blanking plates as this aircraft was unarmed. The forward wells often carried ECM pods so were left as on other F-4s. These planes also had the inner pylons. Now very late in their operational life, some of these planes were upgraded with the ability to carry Sidewinders for self defense, but this wasn't always the case. Note that the RF-4C used the pointy inner pylons more often seen on Navy F-4s. Other than that, this is pretty standard fare. If you have built any of the other versions from Hasegawa, this one will not be much different.

The kit provides options for three planes. Two of them are in the Hill Grey II scheme and these will requite some additional masking as the darker grey swoops down to the nose ending just shy of the radome. Both of these schemes have a fine pinstripe on the outside edge and that is included on the sheet and could be used as a template to make a mask. Anyway, one of the options is the box art plane from the 38th TRS based in Europe. The other in this scheme is with the 106 TRS, Alabama ANG. This aircraft was their boss bird for many years and had its markings evolve as the years went by. The third is in the Euro I scheme. This is a wraparound camouflage so will require the greatest amount of painting skill. It is with the 15th TRS. The kit decals are old school with off white whites and is yellowing so would best be replaced with something fresher, though I have no doubt that they will still work as advertised.  

Though Hasegawa is by no means the only company to produce a series of F-4s, they and Fujimi are the only ones I can think of who have bothered to do the RF-4 version. I would like to think that Fine Molds would step up and do one, but so far they have not so this is still the best in the field. Well worth picking up if you can locate one.