Dinky Phantom "Der Bundesluftwaffe" 2012 Issue

[fliegerii]

I still had a wreck of a Dinky Phantom in my stock. Never had the heart to scrap it.

Recently I needed to order few Dinky spare props and was not amused by the shipping charge of the Dutch trader. I decided to add an order of the missing parts to re-complete the Phantom and to make the order more reasonable.

It was always in my mind to create a Dinky model of the latest Luftwaffe Phantom. The Luftwaffe started to operate the Phantom in 1971 with the RF-4E. In 1973 the F-4F was added, which is still in service until today. 39 years! Sadly this year probably it will be replaced by the Typhoon.

The Dinky original Luftwaffe Phantom was made in 1972 and sold in Germany and Austria only during the year of 1973, i.e. shortly after the real service of the RF-4E in Germany started.
This 2012 version has the current Luftwaffe camo scheme "90J", as it would be eventually realised by Dinky. Also the current Phantom Jets wear these colours. Its a combination of three different grey tones.
I like the contradiction of this at least 30 year old toy representing a current Jet, which is 39 years old!

Regarding the replacement parts: I ordered a pilot, a drop tank and a canopy. All these are newly made parts and not genuine. Here in Europe several traders offer them, but the source is obviously all the same. The pilot is nearly perfect and hardly to distinguish from an original one. The drop tank is of a good shape, but solid one piece cast. The original is two piece cast and assembled. The canopy is most poor. It is little too small, requires some tuning by buffing and little polish.
If somebody of you wants to re-complete a real rare Phantom, such as the original Luftwaffe or the USAF, I would recommend to use only genuine parts from another, less rare type.
For the restauration of wrecks, these remade parts are OK.

Sometimes I wonder, if such restauration of old Dinkys and conversion to so far not done issues could be a business field ... comparable to the Aero Mini story...

[grwebster]

Chris, over the years I have known several people who remade/converted/modified toys to provide new variants the toy company never made. I have, for example, several of Hans Nesbitt's ERTL Force One planes which are magnificent and exceptionally well done. He took them apart, stripped them, refinished them and screwed them back together- Must have taken many, many hours to do them. How long did you spend on your Phantom?
Hans also did some outright counterfeit Dinky Toys, and charged the full prices of original ones. I bought some, and have keep these efforts in my collection as I admire the effort. There are some in my book.

Also I have examples of earlier Dinky Toys like the Comet converted to Nimrods by the Englishman John Alcott {some of these are shown in my book on Dinky Toy Aircraft 1934-1979 printed by Blurb.com} that are for me the best of all. I doubt he ever made any money but did them as a hobby he enjoyed. He told me he never sold more that 7 or so of each variant. One of these, an EC-121 USAF converted from a Dinky Constellation is so well done that it has become one of my most valued toys in the permanent collection. There photos of this also in my book and also on this site.

A Frenchman, Jacques Berenger, in the 1980s also remade hundreds of Aero Mini planes from well played with examples in a wide variety of Airline liveries. He made the decals himself but the quality was never that great and he put way too much gloss coat on all of them. He did replace the broken, missing or bent landing gear often with a simple, not scale, additions. But the effort was a hobby and I don't think he ever sold them. Very impressive to see 100 Dinky Connies in different period livery- there was a photo in TPN as I recall.

There was also the Brian Tomkins efforts in the UK to redo Aero Mini 747s in liveries such as BA and this was the only real, commerical business venture, I believe. He went out of that business after a few years.

People who do them, like you, are generally fanatics about detail and quality, but the collecting community is a small one, collectors for the most part do not have lots of money to spend, and there is just not enough interest to make any business dealing in the field viable, IMO. People just won't pay the premium prices needed to cover the makers costs.

[fliegerii]

I guess it took less than two hours to remake that Phantom. Most time consuming is to remove the old paint. The new paint requires just few minutes, same quick style as they were painted originally...

I also have an Aloha 737 made from the Dinky 737 ...

This way of remaking old and worn models was useful and sensible during a time, when there was no big choice on the market. Until the early 90's you just had Dinky, Aero Minis, Ertl and a few Japanese brands available. So if you wanted a certain model, you had to create it from the few ones accessable.

Today the situation has changed. You can find basically any version of any plane made by some Chinese plant. So if you just want a certain plane and if you do not care under which circumstances it was manufactured, you can buy it via Internet from these sources and be happy with it.

On the other hand the original Dinkys are meanwhile mostly easy to find in good condition for reasonable prices also via Internet. So also from this perspective no need to handle worn specimen.

Nevertheless .. if I find such worn planes casualy for low price somewhere, I would always consider to remake them just to avoid, that these things from a better (model-) past will be scrapped. And last but not least the restauration still gives fun to me!

[grwebster]

very nice work on the 737, you hardly notice the landing gear lever on the side.

[norri]

I guess it took less than two hours to remake that Phantom. Most time consuming is to remove the old paint. The new paint requires just few minutes, same quick style as they were painted originally...

I also have an Aloha 737 made from the Dinky 737 ...

you did well. took me a lot longer than 2 hours to do this lot!

Four colours silver, black, orange, pink. Decals from scratch