Guideline Publications Grumman F-14 Tomcat – Warpaint #126

[Mike]

Grumman F-14 Tomcat – Warpaint #126

Guideline Publications

 

 

What do I say about the Tomcat that hasn't already been said?  A swing-wing Fleet Defence fighter with more than enough presence to be a movie star, which it can include on its resumé with one notable film called Top Gun with little Tommy Cruise at the controls in a rare break from him running round a lot.  With twin GE F110 engines, variable geometry wings for low speed handling as well as at swept for high speed intercepts, two-seat cockpit and a huge capability for weapons carriage and delivery, it was an instant hit, going through a few variants in service with the US Navy and a few Middle Eastern buyers, one being Iran just before their change of administration made the US government regret their decision so much that when the type was withdrawn in the early part of this millennium, any airframes destined for museums were stripped of spares and the rest shredded so that their valuable second-hand parts couldn’t reach the Iranian government to keep their ageing fleet in spares.

 

 

 

This book is by author Charles Stafrace (apologies for spelling his name wrong last time) and covers the birth and development of the legend in much more detail, as well as providing tons of excellent pictures of many airframes in service in colour due to its relatively recent era, plus loose 1:72 plans of the A and D with copious profiles in the rear, penned by John S Fox.  The book is in the usual Warpaint format of portrait A4(ish) with a soft card cover but having a massively increased page count necessitated a perfect binding to accommodate the 120 pages plus content printed on the four glossy pages of the covers.   A short introduction details the birth of the type and its subsequent variants and history:

 

• The ill-fated Naval F-111B
• The VFX Competition
• The Grumman Aircraft Corporation
• The Makings of a Pure Breed – F-14 Tomcat
• The Hughes AWG-10/AIM-54 Phoenix
• Grumman’s F-14A Contracts
• The F-14A Evaluated
• F-14s for the US Marine Corps
• The Imperial Iranian Air Force Orders F-14A
• The Original US Navy F-14B Tomcat
• The F-14+ (The True F-14B)
• F-14D – The Ultimate Tomcat
• The Bombcat
• Other Tomcat Projects and Rejected Proposals
• F-14 TARPS
• F-14A Tomcat Enters Service
• The Hectic 80s
• F-14 vs Libyan Air Force – Round One: September 1980 and August 1981
• Somalia, Grenada and Again, Lebanon – 1983
• The MS Achille Lauro Hijack – October 1985
• Libya – More Encounters
• Exercise Attain Document IandII 1986
• Libya – Operation Prairie Fire
• Libya – Operation El Dorado Canyon 1986
• The IRIAF F-14A Tomcat in the Iran-Iraq War
• Iran-Iraq War – Operation Sultan Ten
• Iran-Iraq War – The ‘Tanker War’ and the US Navy
• Towards The End of The Iran-Iraq War – 1988
• F-14 vs Libyan Arab Air Force – Last Round: January 1989
• Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm 1990/1991
• War in the Balkans – Operations Deny Flight 1993, Deliberate Force 1995 & Allied Force 1999
• Iraq - Operations Provide Comfort, Northern/Southern Watch and Desert Strike
• Iraq - Operation Desert Fox 1998
• Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan 2001 Onwards
• The Fall of Kabul
• Mopping Up of Resistance
• Iraq – Operation Iraqi Freedom - 2003
• Iraq – The Mediterranean Carriers in Operation Iraqi Freedom
• Iraq – Post Operation Iraqi Freedom Phase 1 in Iraq
• The IRIAF Tomcats Today
• End of the Road for US Navy Tomcats
• In Detail – walk around close-up photos
• Colour Artwork by John S Fox (10 pages inc. covers)

 

 

 

The pages include a lot of useful pictures with informative captions of aircraft on the apron, on the field, in the air, during weapons trials and even under construction with all sorts of panels missing, plus appropriate photos and drawings dotted around.  In the not-so-short "In Detail" section there are many numbered close-up photos with matching captions providing excellent information that will be a boon to modellers as well as people that like to know what everything does.

 

 

 

There are dozens of kits available in the full range of scales all the way up to a 1:18 monster “toy” that can be repurposed and detailed as a model if you have the skills and the space to store it later.

 

Conclusion

The Warpaint series always gets a thumbs-up due to their inability to produce a bad one.  This is an excellent book that will see plenty of use by anyone interest in, or building on of this incredibly popular and dangerous (to the enemy) aircraft.

 

Very highly recommended.

 

 

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