Kagero Publishing Grumman F-14 Tomcat - Kit Build #1

[Mike]

Grumman F-14 Tomcat - Kit Build #1

ISBN: 9788366148567

Kagero Publishing via Casemate UK

 

 

There are a lot of modellers that have a soft spot for the F-14 Tomcat, and with a raft of new tooling having been released over the last few years, we’re spoiled for choice.  Anyone that has watched Top Gun (it’s best not to listen to the dialogue) will also have a soft spot for them, and probably Goose too.  In case it had escaped you, the Tomcat was a fleet carrier fighter of immense proportions, with all the Cold War trimmings including twin engines and fins, variable geometry wings, and lots of hard-points to store weapons on.  It first deployed at the beginning of the 70s, stopping briefly to become a movie star in the 80s, and flying on until retirement in 2006, much to the disgust of many a Tomcat fan, who couldn’t quite come to terms with the loss.  The US aircraft that weren’t earmarked for museums were destroyed along with their spares to ensure that those nasty Iranian F-14s wouldn’t get hold of them to keep their ageing Tomcats flying, which they still seem to be anyway.

 

The Book

This is the first edition of a new series from Kagero, the descriptive Kit Build series, which doesn’t need much more explanation unless you don’t speak or read English.  In which case, how did you get this far?  It is printed in full colour in a card cover, which are often referred to as a “bookazine” these days.  It has 66 matt-finished pages within, and is bursting with colour on every one, ignoring the fact that the Tomcat was a grey jet.  There are two builds within the book, one of the 1:48 Tamiya F-14D by Adrian Wolnicki, the other in 1:72 of the Fine Molds F-14A by Robert Skałbania, the latter not being a grey jet at all.

 

 

 

The 1:48 Tamiya Tomcat is built as a care-worn airframe of VF-101 Grim Reapers, who were at NAS Oceana in 2004 when it wore this scheme with red-tipped black fins with their eponymous emblem in white holding his scythe above his hooded head.  Over 23 pages of step-by-step instructions, the various techniques employed to give the surface of the aircraft the appearance of wear, plus a few trips through the anti-corrosion “barn” are explained in words and pictures, showing just how to achieve very realistic effects.  The 1:72 Fine Molds kit is depicted as an earlier F-14A in service at NSAWC (Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center(sic)) at Fallon Nevada, wearing a rather unusual three-tone sand/green/brown camouflage over a grey underside, with matching loviz markings in opposing colours used in the scheme.

 

 

 

Both models are built to a very high standard with small amounts of aftermarket and scratch-building used to further improve the detail of the models.  If you’re one of those weirdos that counts pages in reviews and can’t get them to add up in this review, the majority of the missing pages are used to show off the finished models in high definition, demonstrating the finish you can achieve with some hard work and at least 30ml of talent.  The final 6 pages are devoted to side profiles of various airframes over the years, as well as two pages devoted to the aircraft that can be built using the decals supplied with the book(azine).

 

Markings

Markings in a book?  It’s a decal sheet included with the book that allows you to portray an F-14A BuNo. 160678, No.207, VF-111 Sundowners, USS Carl Vinson, November 1982.  The sheet is printed in 1:72 and 1:48 scale, and the printers are Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.

 

 

 

Conclusion

As long as you order a 30ml bottle of “talent” to go with your Tomcat, this book should give any modeller with a little experience a raft of techniques to try or adapt to their way of doing things.

 

At time of writing this title is on discount from casemate, with a healthy £5 off the usual price.

Review sample courtesy of