booklet is literally crammed with
illustrations and appears rather
intimidating at first glance.
This booklet has a traditional
monotone appearance; I believe the
phrase “retro; would be appropriate.
The Zoukei-Mura instructions are
concise and well laid out, but with
each of the 47 construction stages
drawn from multiple angles, one is
left with sensory overload. A paint
guide is included, though only
Vallejo colour codes are referenced.FLEXIBLE FUSELAGE
Construction begins with the
six-piece ejector seats. These are
slightly disappointing, in thatthey lack harness of any kind,
despite the seats themselves
appearing to be well detailed.
I chose to replace them with
Quickboost items (4142), which
supply single-piece resin seats
and a multi-part etched harness.
The rest of the cockpit is
sufficiently furnished and features
a single-piece floor section, the
reverse side of which forms the
roof of the nose wheel bay. Separate
sidewalls also extend down to
form the bay walls, making for a
rigid internal structure. Separate
rudder pedals, control columns,
and numerous consoles are
supplied for both front and rear
stations, all of which feature crisp
raised and recessed detailing
that rewards careful painting.
Decals are provided for the
consoles and panels, though to myeye these look overly simplistic
and the colours did not match
the descriptions supplied in
the paint guide. I did, however,
use some of the clock faces.
The cockpit interior is described
as being Dark Sea Grey, and
although this seemed unlikely,
the colour did appear to be a close
match to the reference photographs
I had from the internet. Individual
panels and consoles were picked
out in a darker grey and black,
with various knobs and buttons
picked out in red and yellow.
Other than the ejection seats
mentioned above, no other internal
modifications were necessary
and everything went together
as described. The completed
sub-assembly fitted comfortably
against the starboard fuselage
half, but with a lack of locating
pins of any kind there is someambiguity as to the positioning
of the tub. The instructions are
uncharacteristically vague,
other than suggesting that the
cockpit assembly be cemented in
place while the fuselage halves
are temporary taped together.
Extreme care must therefore be
taken to ensure that the nose wheel
bay aligns centrally. Despite doing
so, however, my cockpit ended
up slightly out of position, which
caused me some problems when I
eventually closed up the fuselage.
A pair of rudimentary engines
are included, onto which are
mounted two nicely detailed intake
vanes with separately-moulded
turbine stays. Internally is a
pair of afterburner rings, which
remain visible once the engines
are completed. The fans were given
a coat of Alclad Aluminium and a
wash of black enamel, whilst the“THE SUBTLE SURFACE
DETAILING IS WONDERFULLY
WROUGHT”
WWW.SAMPUBLICATIONS.COM • OCTOBER 2018 • 31
1/48
030-34-QB-Phantom-1018.indd 31 14/09/2018 16:06