Luftwaffe McDonnell Douglas F4N Phantom, Carrier Graf Zeppelin, November 1975

[nönöbär]

Luftwaffe McDonnell Douglas F4N Phantom, Carrier Graf Zeppelin, November 1975

The Aircraft:

When the Bundesluftwaffe started to think to introduce the F4F Phantom in the mid 1960s, the Marine showed its interest to introduce the plane on the aircraft carrier Graf Zepplein (http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,37705.msg612067.html#msg612067) as well. Therefore 24 aircraft were modified to the F4N standard with additional equipment for carrier operations and form 1965 on, the F4N was used on board of the aircraft carrier.
Because of its size usually no more than 8 of those planes were on board of the Graf Zepplin. Form the time of their introduction and the decommissioning of the Graf Zeppelin in October 1980, the ship mainly operated in the North Atlantic as part of the patrols at the GIUK-gap.
During that time, 4 F4N were lost during start and landing accidents due to the bad weather ocnditions in this part of the Atlantic.

After the decommissioning of the Graf Zeppelin, the remaining 20 F4N were transferred to land based Marineflieger bases where they were used until the late 1990s.
 
F4N on board of the Graf Zeppelin, November 1975










German Post-WW2 Marineflieger collection








The Model:

The model is a 1/72 scale Hasegawa F4-EJ kit, painted with Revell Aqua Colours in Marineflieger scheme. Build OOB, some decals form the spare part box and a Paddinghaus decal set were used.

[TomZ]

Looks great.

Also love your marineflieger collection!

TomZ

[TheChronicOne]

Wow, that looks great!!!  Fantastic work, I love Phantoms and never had this type of thing ever crossed my mind but man does it look good. 


Whole collection there is glorious! 

[NARSES2]

Looks good, adds to a great collection 

[chrisonord]

Excellent collection you have there 
Chris

[McColm]

Well done,
I might choose a squadron for all my builds.

[zenrat]

Good job.

[DogfighterZen]

 Nice collection.