Hasegawa 1/48 RF-4B Phantom II Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

The RF-4B was a reconnaissance platform developed from the F-4B for the US Marine Corps. The RF-4B paralleled the capabilities of the USAF's RF-4C with a variety of camera and sensor systems fitted. Approximately 46 aircraft were produced for Marine Corps service equipping VMCJ-1, VMCJ-2 and VMCJ-3 during the mid-1960s before those three squadrons were unified under VMFP-3 in 1975. The RF-4B would continue to service until late 1990 when VMFP-3 was decommissioned and its aircraft sent into mothballs.

Hasegawa's Phantoms remain the best kits of the type in 1/48 scale as well as 1/72. They clearly show a love affair that the kit designers have with this subject and to date have produced just about every version of the Phantom that rolled off the production line. Their RF-4B kit has been periodically reissued and this time around the kit is released with several variations of the distinctive VMCJ-2 markings.

The kit is molded light gray styrene and presented on seven parts trees of light gray styrene plus two trees of clear parts. The details on this kit (as are most of the Phantoms) are finely scribed. Only the early tooling of the F-4J was raised and I believe that has been reissued with scribed details to conform with the rest of the Phantoms in this series. While at least Testors/Italeri have also produced this kit in 1/48 scale, the Hasegawa RF-4B is the best in any scale at present though the tooling is starting to show its age.

Among the features/options in this kit:

• Optional crew figures
• Reasonably detailed cockpits
• Canopies can be posed open or closed
• Camera suite in the nose
• Flash cartridge launchers can be posed with doors open or closed
• Speed brakes can be posed open or closed
• Stabilators can be posed
• The standard external stores as reflected in this release include:
  • 1 x ALQ-131
  • 2 x external 370 gallon tanks on the outboard pylons
  • 1 x standard 600 gallon centerline tank

Markings are provided for one aircraft as it appeared at three different times:

• RF-4B, 157344, VMCJ-2, CY/1, USMC
• RF-4B, 157344, VMCJ-2, CY/00, USMC
• RF-4B, 157344, VMCJ-2, CY/12, USMC

This is a nice limited edition release, so if you're in the market to build a recce Phantom with those distiguished Playboy bunny heads on the tail, this is the kit to grab!

I highly recommend this kit to any Phantom lover!

My sincere thanks to Hasegawa USA for this review sample!