My fortune is high – a good friend, learning of my ambition to add more modern aircraft to my Israeli desert museum, has donated a fresh Hasegawa kit.
It is an E model dedicated to the USAF, but not all that far from Israeli practice, and certainly convertible for my purposes. The real desert museum in Hatzerim has had many of these aircraft for display, and other air bases and places have also gotten them as gate guards. I will have a choice of sparkling paint or hideous red dust.
The Hasegawa kit is an older product, raised panel lines, but superbly moulded withal. The canopy is clear and there is enough detail within to show through…though not if the desert sun is allowed to crisp up the perspex.
The decals for the USAF version also seem fine, but so far no ready-made sheet of IDF markings is to hand. Even our one dedicated shop here in town that has boxes of after-market decals came up dry. Of course, if the F4 is depicted in heavy sun-weathering, the detail needed for decals is very much less, and the home-made ones may well suffice.
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