1/48 F-14A, VF-84 'Cat shot, Desert Storm, 1991

[Bandwagon 106]

The bug bit me when I was very young-I had Bill Gunston's Salamander book on modern fighters, I still have it now! The Hornet and AV-8B were in prototype livery as was the Tornado, that's how long ago it was! The tomcat had a side profile of a VF-84 F-14 and there was that VF-211 picture-head on in all its colour.. My very first kit was a Matchbox 1/72- a joint effort with my dad. I loved it! The films helped no end too!

Joel

[DaveJL]

The bug bit me when I was very young-I had Bill Gunston's Salamander book on modern fighters, I still have it now! The Hornet and AV-8B were in prototype livery as was the Tornado, that's how long ago it was! The tomcat had a side profile of a VF-84 F-14 and there was that VF-211 picture-head on in all its colour.. My very first kit was a Matchbox 1/72- a joint effort with my dad. I loved it! The films helped no end too!

Joel

Everyone seems to be getting very nostalgic for the old 'cat!

[Dermo245]

Everyone seems to be getting very nostalgic for the old 'cat!

I'm going to show my age here......I remember as a kid reading about one taxiing off an aircraft carrier into the North Sea and the frantic efforts to find it before the Russians did. When I saw pictures of that plane, it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. And then Airfix released it which made it sub-zero

(In fairness to the crew, I think they had a runaway throttle which caused the accident)

Nostalgia bit over. Nice work there Dave!

Cheers,

Dermot

[DaveJL]

Nice work there Dave!

Cheers,

Dermot

Thanks Dermot. If I remember correctly, i think one went down off the coast of Cork in the early '90's too.

[Kev1n]

Ah I remember that, VF-84 jets if i'm not mistaken!

yep!

The Jolly Rogers Fighting 84th.....TFC was one of my three most inspiring movies and I have all three on vid so they tend to get watched every so often

[DaveJL]

More painting today. Added the grey to the 'bags', another coat of black gloss and painted the exhausts gun metal. The latter and the 'bags' still need weathered accordingly.

Canopy and stripe (for want of a better word) were also done:

Also painted the ventral strakes gloss black:

And painted up the AIM-7's, AIM-9's and fuel tanks:

Few small tidy ups needed. Not looking too bad. Next up is the wings and some small airframe details!

I'll leave you with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXmlu8OH_gw (this was all genuine footage from VF-84's last, or penultimate, cruise, right before the Jolly Rogers became VF-103. I think!)

More to follow.

'Freezer'

[Dermo245]

Fine work on the paint there Freezer. Coming along very nicely.

Thanks Dermot. If I remember correctly, i think one went down off the coast of Cork in the early '90's too.

I think you might be thinking of an F-14 tail that washed up on a beach in Cork in 2006 (it's a good tale).

It was found by a retired airline Captain who was out walking on the beach and discovered a 10 foot long piece of Tomcat tail, with unit markings still visible. Needless to say, the online rumour-mill went into apopletctic overdrive, probably fuelled by a lot of anti-American feeling as US flights were landing in Shannon airport on their way to and from Iraq. The trolls were saying amongst others, that the F-14 had "violated our neutral airspace on a flight back from Iraq" or that it had crashed while conducting "unauthorised reconnaissance in our neutral blah blah blah".

The truth was far more interesting.

Once the tail markings and numbers were checked out by the retired pilot and passed to the US Navy, the true fate of the plane was known. It belonged to VF-101 (Grim Reapers?) and had crashed off the Florida coast in October 2002 - 3 and a half years before it was found. The plane was taking part in ACM and suffered a compressor stall - both crew safely ejected and were recovered from the ocean. And their jet spun in, probably at a fair rate of knots.

And all that time later, a piece of it landed on the coast 4,900 miles away from where it crashed. The retired pilot got to keep the tail too......

A Tomcat message-in-a-bottle if you like.

Sorry for the thread hijack - keep up the great work!

Shamrock

[DaveJL]

Bit more painting done today. First off, i finished the canopy and stipe. Also added the green tint to the windshield. A light bit of weathering was applied to the forward fuselage, just to give me an idea of how dirty i want to make it:

Next up, i added the antennae on the top of the fuselage:

You can also make out the nav light on the shoulder:

The yellow bits are the ECM bulges. Next, i added some weathering to the exhausts, not sure how much of a difference it makes, but they look more 'worn' now:

The ventral strakes were also added as was weathering to the 'bags':

The TCS was painted next. Clear blue for the lens itself, red for the nav light and a weathered yellow for the ECM kit:

And the wings are complete:

One thing of to note here is that the wing tip lights are actually the opposite way round to what Hasegawa have stated i.e L11 should go were L10 is illustrated and vice versa.

Next up is to add depth to the panel lines, attach the landing gear and add some bits and pieces!

I'll leave you with this:

More to follow.

'Freezer'

Edited January 26, 2012 by DaveJL

[Giorgio N]

Looking good Freezer !!!

I remember the story of the Tomcat tail that was found in Ireland. All I could think back then was "if only I had gone down to Cork to take a walk on that beach...". The tail would have looked great in my living room ! Moving it back to Italy from limerick on a small fiat convertible would have been a bit difficult though..

[DaveJL]

Fine work on the paint there Freezer. Coming along very nicely.

I think you might be thinking of an F-14 tail that washed up on a beach in Cork in 2006 (it's a good tale).

It was found by a retired airline Captain who was out walking on the beach and discovered a 10 foot long piece of Tomcat tail, with unit markings still visible. Needless to say, the online rumour-mill went into apopletctic overdrive, probably fuelled by a lot of anti-American feeling as US flights were landing in Shannon airport on their way to and from Iraq. The trolls were saying amongst others, that the F-14 had "violated our neutral airspace on a flight back from Iraq" or that it had crashed while conducting "unauthorised reconnaissance in our neutral blah blah blah".

The truth was far more interesting.

Once the tail markings and numbers were checked out by the retired pilot and passed to the US Navy, the true fate of the plane was known. It belonged to VF-101 (Grim Reapers?) and had crashed off the Florida coast in October 2002 - 3 and a half years before it was found. The plane was taking part in ACM and suffered a compressor stall - both crew safely ejected and were recovered from the ocean. And their jet spun in, probably at a fair rate of knots.

And all that time later, a piece of it landed on the coast 4,900 miles away from where it crashed. The retired pilot got to keep the tail too......

A Tomcat message-in-a-bottle if you like.

Sorry for the thread hijack - keep up the great work!

Shamrock

Thanks for the info, an interesting story! I honestly thought i read somewhere that an A model crashed near Ireland while it's carrier was visiting the UK. I must be making it up!

[DaveJL]

Looking good Freezer !!!

I remember the story of the Tomcat tail that was found in Ireland. All I could think back then was "if only I had gone down to Cork to take a walk on that beach...". The tail would have looked great in my living room ! Moving it back to Italy from limerick on a small fiat convertible would have been a bit difficult though..

Thanks Giorgio. You could have just tied it to the bonnet or something like that!

[DaveJL]

Another bit of progress to report. I decided to crack on with the weathering. The majority of pictures of Desert Storm F-14's i have seen, show them very heavily weathered;

http://www.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/airc...storm_19663.htm

http://www.aviationspectator.com/image/pho.../f-14-tomcat-93

http://www.aviationspectator.com/files/ima...-Tomcat-179.jpg

...you get the idea. So i tried to emulate this, along with pictures of weathering patterns from the Daco book.

First i added some haphazard staining using a mixture of greys. When a panel was removed for maintenance and replaced, the seal and screws were sprayed to prevent corrosion to the bare metal:

To prove i'm not making it up...

So after the grey paint was added, i started with the grime and grease. I like to use tamiya weathering sets applied with either a stubby brush or a padded applicator:

Note that the wings have been attached. The underside:

Fuel tanks have also been attached.

A look at the jet on the catapult:

What do you think of the weathering? Too much, too little, too inaccurate, not grey enough?

Next up is the landing gear.

I'll leave you with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtAUR6ETyhY&feature=fvst

More to follow.

'Freezer'

Edited January 27, 2012 by DaveJL

[F-32]

Lookin good!

[Kev1n]

now that is impressive...I'd say you got it about right

nice work

[pte1643]

Looks good, but...

I think you've gone the wrong way with the wing "sweep" grime. Shouldn't the arc be other way?

[DaveJL]

Looks good, but...

I think you've gone the wrong way with the wing "sweep" grime. Shouldn't the arc be other way?

I'm not sure lol. I figured because the areas i've weathered would be tucked up when the wings are swept, it would be mucky like that and with the wings pivoting outwards, the streaks would point toward the rear. I don't have many photos of it if i'm honest!

[DaveJL]

Lookin good!

Thanks mate

[DaveJL]

now that is impressive...I'd say you got it about right

nice work

Thanks mate. I'm undecided whether i'm happy with it myself!

[JeffreyK]

" I think you've gone the wrong way with the wing "sweep" grime. Shouldn't the arc be other way? "

Yes, I thought the same thing...the grime should sweep the other way. Have a look at these pics: http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/Air...cats/index.html

Otherwise: a very fine built! I'm mostly looking forward to seeing the cat base and diorama.

J

[DaveJL]

" I think you've gone the wrong way with the wing "sweep" grime. Shouldn't the arc be other way? "

Yes, I thought the same thing...the grime should sweep the other way. Have a look at these pics: http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/Air...cats/index.html

Otherwise: a very fine built! I'm mostly looking forward to seeing the cat base and diorama.

J

Thanks for that. I'll update the build accordingly. Watch this space!

[DaveJL]

Fixed the angle of the wing sweep 'grime' after consulting several images, namely this one:

You can see the angle, direction and extent of the grime. Here's my attempt:

Not too sure if it looks right. Perhaps you could let me know?

I've also started on assembling the landing gear and painting the resin wheels. Some photos of this to follow tomorrow.

I'll leave you with this:

More to follow.

'Freezer'

[Dermo245]

That's looking nice Freezer.

Wing sweep grime looks good.

Shamrock

[Parabat]

Good save! That looks the proverbial dog's...

Coming on real nice Freezer!

Rip-Cord

Edited January 29, 2012 by Parabat

[DaveJL]

Good save! That looks the proverbial dog's...

Comic's on real nice Freezer!

Rip-Cord

Thanks mate. I'm still not sure if it looks right!

That's looking nice Freezer.

Wing sweep grime looks good.

Shamrock

Thanks. I'm still undecided if i like it or not, but at least it's going the right way

[coneheadff]

Looking good!