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Hey All, This build was a spiritual successor to my Hobby-Boss F-14D which I also hugely enjoyed building. Both builds are on different continents now. The build was mostly OOB with the exception of basic riveting (to justify the weathering) and rotating of the Nose Landing Gear (probably not technically accurate for a parked aircraft but adds a dash of dynamism). The HARM missile was borrowed from the Academy F-16CJ kit, and the pilot from the Hasegawa F-18D kit. Missiles all carry the blue ribbon of non-lethality Painted using Vallejo Model Air and Alclad II. Weathered with oil paints and a hog brush. The base was made from styrene sheet, acrylics paints and salt weathering. The aircraft was supposed to represent the more grittier F-18F seen aboard the Carl Vinson, but I destroyed the decal along with a "NAVY" decal on the starboard side, so went with the Abraham Lincon. The Pilot figure was from the Hasegawa F-18D kit. Anti corrosion paint touch-ups on the tails Some forced perspective with the excellent Trumpeter 1/144 F-14D kit. Thanks for watching and happy modeling! Cheers, Alex.

Hello fellow modelers, This is my final kit for this year, and I wanted a really fine one. There’s nothing else to be said regarding Tamiya’s F-14A, so let’s just say it worths every dollar spent. Decided to do the Bounty Hunters because I’m a big fan of the colorful high-vis US Navy jets in the 70’s. I’ve used the Quinta 3D decals for the cockpit, which are really great and easy to set. Also, used Galaxy masks and they’re a big help for painting details with precision. Weathered as a mid cruise bird, not too much dirt, but not pristine either. The kit decals are typical Tamiya, i.e., slightly to the thick side, but Mr Softer dealt with them easily. Hope you enjoy and, of course….. Merry Xmas and a very good New Year!! Cheers! George

Hello everybody! After months of procrastination, I finally completed this model I had started on in August of last year. Details added: Scratch built Ejection Seat detail Full hydraulic lines on landing gear using stretched sprue closely matched landing gear bays (hydraulic lines and additional detail) scratch built ventral fins Scratch build Sub-sonic ramps in the intakes (missing in the kit) Riveting where ever appropriate (around cockpit and on the upper surfaces of the fuselage Improvement to the chin pod TVSU Drilled out a hole in the fuel dump pipe scratch built carrier deck base (with liberal dose of creative liberty in design) wheel chocks from styrene card Boo-boos include: Fogged up canopy due to improper future application Cockpit Instrument panel PE print lifted off the brass due to water damage during salt weathering Salt weathering was a MESS. Fortunately it was salvageable with spraying on the weathering again through a thin slice of dish scrubber as mask Spilled Alclad on a completed exhaust corroding away the plastic (again salvageable fortunately) Omitted AoA sensors on fuselage side (it would have been lost to the carpet monster anyways) "100" decal applied in reverse on starboard side Additional PE and accessories include: Dream Model cockpit PE detail set Dream Model Pitot Tube Infiniti Carrier Tie-down point PE set (including the chain) Pilot and RIO from Revell NATO Pilot set The model was a joy to build, and the option to pose the wings extended or retracted provides a lot of flexibility to displaying it. It also had a perfect blend of detail v/s ease of build. Kudos to HB for that. A special thanks to Parabat, Tony Oliver, Navy Bird and Ratmigs for all their inputs during the build process. Tony Oliver's experience with the kit helped mitigate a lot of problems I would have otherwise run into. The wooden pedestal was made by a colleague skilled in woodwork. Much appreciated guys! On to the pictures! The reason I was excited about this particular scheme was this die-cast model of the F/A-18F in the same Bounty Hunters CAG scheme. Do they look beautiful together or what! Ejection seat detailing with stretched sprue and Dream Model PE set Cockpit detailing with Dream Model PE set and tissue paper to simulate the canvas covers on the IP cowls Nose Gear bay detailing Nose gear Detailing... Everything eventually disappeared into the dark recesses of the aircraft Sub-Sonic Air ramp scratch-building. Hardly seen in the shadows, but good to know it's there Scratch built the ventral fins to recreate the prominent NACA vents Scratch build a carrier base using the Infiniti Tie Down PE set. There were a 44 tie-down points included, thus I had to keep the base to a small size despite increasing the distance between points slightly A parting shot taken from the balcony of our apartment during a glorious sunset. Thanks for watching! Cheers, Alex.

Hi all and here's the latest from me - finished for the KUTA group build here. I always wanted to model an F-14 getting ready to launch with dropped flaps etc so decided to take a knife to the original Revell kit a couple of years back...and then lost all interest. She has been in stuffed away in a box on the shelf of doom for ages and I finally got the finger out and finished it for the GB. Not my finest build and some inaccuracies here and there but I had a lot of fun and am really happy to have it finished at last. The full build log is here but in summary... Kit: 04195 Revell 1/72 F-14D Tomcat Paints: All brush painted - Revell Aqua Colour acrylics, Future, Flory Models wash, W&N Matt Varnish Decals: From Hobby Boss F-14D kit for BuNo163894 VF-2 Bounty Hunters, CAG jet USS Constellation Extras: Hasegawa - pilots, wing sweep bladders, BOL rails, Lantirn pod and weapons Hobby Boss - catapult nose gear Wing slats/flaps - kits' own and scratchbuilt The real a/c was delivered to the US Navy in 1990 and served with a couple of squadrons before transferring to VF-2 squadron aboard USS Constellation in the late 90s. In 2001, the plane became the CAG jet with the callsign 'Bullet 100' and dropped over 55 bombs during operations in Iraq in 2003. The big stripe markings apparently are called 'Langley Stripes', in honour of when this squadron served in the 1920s aboard the USS Langley, the first American aircraft carrier. Thanks for looking and comments welcomed! Dermot

I thought I'd cover all bases by doing the F-14 in A, B & D variants. The kits I've chosen are Revell's F-14A and Ace Corporation's (Revell mould) B & D. I bought a set of Super Scale decals ages ago and I'm going to use the Bicentennial markings of VF-124 for the A. The B comes with markings for VF-103's 1996 "Santa Cat" and the D has markings for VF-2's "Last Cruise" bird. So I should have three colourful Tomcats when I'm finished.