Defenders of Nippon: F-4 Phantom II McDonnell Douglas/Mitsubishi EF.4E.T RE_4E.] F-4E.J Kai & RF-4E.!] KaiDefenders of Nippon McDonnell Douglas / Mitsubishi F-4EJ/RF-4EJ/F-4EJKai & RF-4EJ Kai Phantom II By Peter Fearis Peter Scott Glenn Sands Published by Kaburaya books Copyrite Nov 2002Foreword The F-4 Phantom has and always will be an aeroplane of immense popularity! For the modeller and historian, the Phantom offers everything from an interesting operational service history to a vast amount of colourful schemes, perhaps more than any other military type. This book takes a look at this most venerable of aircraft, in the service of the Japanese Air Self Defence Force (JASDF). Dur- ing its service with the JASDF, the F-4EJ “Phantom’ (its official designation) has carried a myriad of colour schemes and special markings. ‘As a modeller | have always been interested in aircraft that have served with the Japanese air arms, in particular the colour schemes they carry. This book has been brought to print by the passion of the illustrator, Peter Scott, who has over the years collected a vast selection of F-4EJ photographs and converted them into the wonderful collection of profiles contained between the covers. Alto- gether, Peter has put together over 400 side views, which cover everything from everyday opera- tional schemes to the wild and sometimes wacky special anniversary schemes! The pages that follow will hopefully act as an aid and inspiration for enthusiastic modellers, to stray from the straight and normal scheme into the more unusual areas. Itwas decided at the outset of this book that certain criteria would be followed. The first was set by Peter himself! Only profiles that Peter could confirm with photographic proof that satisfied him would be included, in short, no guess work! Last but not least, we would not repeat areas that have been covered so profusely by other titles, such as interior details. The modelling section of this book has also been kept to a minimum. You will net find lists of kits or accessories, but you will find helpful information on colours. At this point | would like to bring two items to the readers attention. The first is the use of Federal Standard (F.S.) numbers within this book. This is used purely to aid the modeller, since information on JASDF colours is very sketchy. Some are F.S. colours, others are JASDF speci- fications. These JASDF specifications would serve of little use to the modeller outside Japan and would just cause confusion, so the F.S. system was used. Secondly, many of the temporary schemes, used non-standard colours, for example the browns and greens applied to some gunnery meet air- craft. In this area the authors have had to use a combination of experience, research (which more than often came to a dead end) and carefully calculated guess work, for want of a more technical term! Where this has been used, the reader has been advised accordingly. The results of this system have, in our judgment, proved more than acceptable, especially when research has found that even the JASDF have no records of some of the colours which were quite often mixed on the day from available stock. Having stated this, we hope that the reader will enjoy our work as much as we have enjoyed compiling it Before moving on to the main body of this book | would like to take time to thank a couple of people whom without their help this book would not have become what we hope it will be, the defini- tive guide to JASDF Phantom colour schemes. Peter Scott - for his passion of the subject and the illustrations. Glenn Sands - for the research into the service history of the F-4EJ Last but no least we are indebted to Takahashi San and Teckiuchi San for the photographs they have kindly supplied, to add that special interest to this publication, a sincere thank you! Itis sincerely hoped by myself and all the contributors that this book, along with others in the pipeline (the F-104 Eiko is next), will be of value and of use to modellers for many years to come. Peter Fearis JASDF