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F-14A Tomcat VF-1 Wolfpack from Tamiya 1/48 kit?


Sidders

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Hi Guys,

 

For the benefit of the uneducated, please can a resident Tomcat expert advise if a VF-1 Wolfpack from the early 70’s can be built directly from the Tamiya 1/48 kit obviously with aftermarket decals only? Or are further modifications required?

 

Many thanks for your help, as always.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

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Unfortunately an early Tomcat need some modifications to the Tamiya kit. The first VF-1 aircrafts were from production blocks up to 70 included and these had a different beaver-tail, different top airbrakes, different gun gas vents, different radome tip and slightly different tail caps

The tail caps can be sorted easily, the gun vents can be modified if you want to (fill some and scribe some more), the radome can be modfied quite easily, the beaver-tail however is very different and would require a lot of work. I don't know if there's any aftermarket part for this.

 

Said that, if you are only interested in VF-1 markings and are necessarily interested in the very first ones, VF-1 at some point in the '70s received newer aircrafts, more similar to the Tamiya kit. The first things to change were the tail caps with Block 75.  Then with Bu.No. 159422 the beavertail was modified. The old gun vents system was replaced in the middle of Block 85 while the new radome, with the probe on the tip, was introduced with Block 95.

VF-1 had aircrafts from a variety of blocks during the 1976-77 cruise, none from Block 95 but at least one from Block 85 with the new gun vents. This was NK-105, oc which unfortunately I don't know the Bureau Number. This could be built from the Tamya kit by simply modifying the radome tip. Other aircrafts from that cruise could be built by modifying the radome and the gun vents.

During the 1978 cruise there were a few newer aircrafts but by then the colour scheme had changed becoming overall light gull grey. Markings were very similar but at some point in that year the red stripe on the nose disappeared.

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This is a future project of mine as well...the grey/white Wolfpack markings on a 1/48 Tomcat.

 

Giorgio, you clearly know your stuff regarding this subject...were there no grey/white wolfpack airframes without the beaver-tail? I have a wealth of F-14 material but it's all away in storage, so I appreciate your advice...

 

Launchpad

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2 hours ago, Launchpad said:

This is a future project of mine as well...the grey/white Wolfpack markings on a 1/48 Tomcat.

 

Giorgio, you clearly know your stuff regarding this subject...were there no grey/white wolfpack airframes without the beaver-tail? I have a wealth of F-14 material but it's all away in storage, so I appreciate your advice...

 

Launchpad

 

Generally the name beavertail is used for all the various configurations of the rear fuselage area between the exhausts on the Tomcat.

A look at the link posted by Andre is useful

 

http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-beavertail.htm

 

Now the early style is the one in the top drawing. The dielectric panels were almost immediately removed, so the configuration is the one visible in the first 3 pictures on the same page. This style was used on all the aircrafts initially received by VF-1.

The definitive style is the one shown in the middle drawing, and this is the same given by Tamiya. A number of grey over white VF-1 aircrafts sure had this style.

The bottom drawing shows the same style of beavertail with the addition of the ECM system, but this is outside the scope of the discussion here...

 

Let's go back to the middle drawing. As I said, some aircrafts with this tail served with VF-1 in the scheme you're interested. A few I know of:

Bu.No. 159461 NK-115. This was a Block 80 aircraft and was with VF-1 in 1975. In 1976 crashed due to an engine problem, most likely still in the same colour scheme

Bu.No. 159465 NK-114. Another Block 80 aircraft, initially serving with VF-124 and then assigned to VF-1 in August 1975, that is right after the unit returned from Vietnam

Bu.No. 159467 NK-102. Guess what... another from Block 80! And another that came from VF-124 to VF-1.

There were more, just look at the picture in this link:

 

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/0265apa.jpg

 

Both NK-101 and NK-104 have the same beavertail of the Tamiya kit. Unfortunately I can't see the gun vents well enough to understand if they have the older or newer style. To compare with the first beavertail style, look at the aircraft in Ferris camouflage between NK-104 and the VF-211 bird, this shows the early tail.

The picture below is proof that aircrafts with the more recent gun vents served with VF-1 in grey-over-white

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/F-14As_of_VF-1_and_VF-2_on_USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65)_c1976.jpg

 

NK-105 has the same gun vents of the Tamiya kit, and as these were introduced after the definitive beavertail, this aircraft has both. The difference in the gun vent styles is immediate in this picture, just compare with VF-2's NK-212 in the foreground that has the older style.

I can't see the tip of the radome unfortunately but I believe this is the older style without the Alpha probe on the tip. To build this aircraft from the Tamiya kit you only have to modify the radome slightly

To build a Block 80 aircraft like the ones mentioned above, you also have to modify the gun vents. I've seen this done in a modelling magazine, will get it off the shelves and let you know which one and which issue.

 

Hope this helps ! Tomcats look almost the same but there are indeed a lot of smaller details that changed among production blocks.

 

Edited by Giorgio N
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Steel Beach makes a conversion set for the Tamiya F-14a. It includes a new beaver tail, new gun vent and a new chin pod. The quality is fair. Quickboost also makes a backdated gun vent of better quality. The only other option is to take the parts from one of the Hasegawa kits that have them. This is what I did even though I had the Steel Beach parts too (they are basically copies of the Hasegawa parts that have been modified). I wish the Quickboost gun vents had been out when I did mine as modifying the Hasegawa part was tricky.

The other problem is finding decals. The only real option is the out of production Fightertown decals. I have those. Unfortunately, they are sized to fit the Hasegawa kit and won't fit properly on the Tamiya kit. I have communicated with Brian at Fightertown and he plans on releasing a new F-14 sheet that would include updated VF-1 markings to fit the Tamiya kit, but he does not have an ETA and has been very busy with other things and has not had time to work on decals.

I have seen a kit that was converted using the Steel Beach set and used the current Fightertown decals. It looked very nice, but once you know what to look for as far as the markings, you can't unsee the fit problems.

Edited by mstorin
Correct spelling errors
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