1:48 QF-4B Navy Drone Phantoms

Phantoms that flew without a crew

The US Navy retired the first production Phantoms at a time when it was desperately looking for airframes for live firing, so some of the veterans did not end up in the smelters. Selected examples went through a conversion into unmanned targets and received the designation QF-4B. They flew either with a pilot on board for transfers and trials, or entirely by remote control as a target for live firing, and in order to be visible for tens of kilometers they carried conspicuous warning areas.

The sheet offers several marking options for machines operated by two facilities. One was the Naval Air Development Center at Warminster in Pennsylvania, the other the test range at Point Mugu in California on the Pacific coast. Both have a handwriting of their own in the numbering, the codes and the layout of the color bands, so one set will build several distinctly different machines.

Working with them is as usual for thin printed decals. Leave the base under the markings glossy, separate the individual images with a cut close to the edge and, once they are transferred, settle them with decal softener so that they follow the rivets and panel lines. At the end, even the surface out with a flat coat. The aircraft model itself is obtained separately; the sheet is intended for finishing it.

Target machines have one pleasing quality for a modeler: their finish was designed to be visible at great distances, so a finished example on a shelf among gray combat aircraft certainly does not get lost. At the same time they carried the marks of hard service, because nobody was preparing them for a parade and the maintenance concentrated on getting them into the air at all.

The combination of garish areas and a scuffed surface thus gives room on one model for both, for rich color as well as for faded and dusty surroundings of the panel gaps.