Greyhound Books  

Detail-series 1 Phantom II

by Peter Anthoni and Nico Deboek

Reviewed by Rodger Kelly

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Greyhound Books is a relatively new company based in the European country of Belgium who, as their website advises - offer books for the aircraft enthusiast and scale aircraft modeller.

A visit to their website at http://www.greyhound-books.com/ certainly shows that they do more than just produce books and that they truly are modellers themselves.

The subject of this review is the first release in their Detail - series and it covers the F-4 Phantom II.  Titled Phantom II – A detailed view of the F-4 E/F & RF-4E, it certainly does that!

I would classify the book as a “walk around” type in as much as it provides you with sharp excellent quality close-up images of all aspects of the subject aircraft, all of which are in full colour.

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Thumbnail panels:

Its chapters are:

• Exterior.  57 pages in all and include mostly multiple shots of the airframe including excellent coverage of the undercarriage and wheel wells, wings, wing slats, speed brakes, pylons, flying surfaces, intakes.  German, Turkish, and Japanese Self Defence Force RF-4s, Greek, German, Japanese Self Defence Force, Turkish F-4E, F-4F and F-4-EJs are all shown.

• Cockpit.  14 pages in this chapter and it features German F-4F and RF-4E as well as a highly modified Greek F-4E.  The full cockpit is covered including front and rear instrument panels, left and right consoles and some really excellent images of the Martin-Baker Mk 7 ejector seats.

• Action!  In a walk-around book?  Heck, I’m not complaining as it is 35 pages of some really stunning images of the F-4 in action, flying, formatting, marshalling and taxiing.  Images of the same mix of types and countries as the previous chapters are shown as well as USAF heritage painted QF-4Es, F-4Es and Israeli F-4Es.

• Maintenance.  14 pages of images of what is behind the F-4’s access panels.  Excellent images of German F-4F and Greek F-4Es in various stages of disassembly feature here.  Also included are images of the armament and engines both in and out of the airframe.

• Line Drawings.  The final chapter is only eight pages and shows 1/72 and 1/48 scale line drawings of F-4E/Fs by Willy Peters.  The chapter features separate drawings of the various pylons and drop tanks too.

The book is soft bound, measures 9 ½" x 8 ¼" (240mm x 210mm) in size and consists of 134 pages of good quality glossy paper.

You also get a nifty book mark with the book which features a drawing of a characterised USAF F-4E by Willy Peters on the front and a line drawing of an
F-4E/F on the back.  At first I dismissed the book mark as simply a “nice to have” but closer examination of the line drawing reveals that it is really an index tool to the pages of the book that relate to the drawing – neat!

Greyhound Books website lists the book at 30 Euro plus postage and packing to your letterbox.  Not cheap but considering what you are getting, it is well and truly worth what they are asking as far as I am concerned.

An excellent first effort from Greyhound Books!

Recommended.