Great Wall Hobbies 1/72 Grumman F-14D Tomcat

[hsr]

This is my build of the Great Wall Hobbies' Grumman F-14D Tomcat. I was actually a little intimidated by the number of parts in this kit, but this is a really great kit with a ton of options (see Paul Boyers FSM review for a complete list at https://finescale.com/product-info/kit-reviews/2020/08/workbench-review-gwh-f14-tomcat), and more parts left over than most kits have in total. Fit was excellent requiring minimal filler and sanding. The only fit issue I had was with the nose radome. One of the of the possible options was to display it open showing the radar and I guess they really want you to install it that way. But I like my builds to show the aircraft all buttoned up. The decals were very complete and went down easily with no silvering, which is good because they were a lot of them. They wings are movable but the move independently and not together. I have them swept all the way back to save shelf space. They don't have to be installed until the end which makes painting them easier. 

 

I only had 2 issues; the first one being the terrible instructions.  There are 29 steps on 16 sheets, plus a 6 page addendum. The sheets were not in booklet form but each sheet had a set of step, front and back and then you go on to the next sheet. So you did a lot of shuffling between sheets and the addendum. And despite the 6 page addendum there were still errors. All the instructions were pictorial with  virtually no text. Some of the parts placement were very vague and while the different options are shown there were no explanations of why one or the other should be used. One of these options was that the front landing gear strut could either be extended or fully compressed. I figured if it is sitting on the ground it must be compressed so I used that one. It wasn't until I installed the wheels (usually the last thing I do) that I realized it gave it a definite node down attitude. Now that I think about it I seem to recall that this was to allow the nose of one aircraft to tuck under the one in front of it, saving deck space. The other issue was the engines. It looks like P&W TF30 are well detailed inside and out, but the GE F110-GE-400 engines were kind of plain on the inside. I fixed this with a set of Reskit engines. Note that the Redkit engines are not a drop-in replacement and require some surgery to the rear fuselage. 

 

Enough of my babbling. Here are the pictures.

 

 

I don't usually show the underside of my builds, but since I spent a day applying all those tiny decals to the missile here it is

 

 

Next up is the Decarli kit of the Diamond DA-20-C1 trainer.

 

Enjoy

 

 

 

[Team Aer Lingus]

An absolute beauty very well done 

 

thanks for sharing

 

E.

[hsr]

Thanks. Well worth the effort.

[Nocoolname]

Wow! That's a super job! The difference between this and my Airfix 1/72 F-14 effort 'back in the day' just made me hide under the table blushing

 

Thanks for sharing! 🙂

[David Womby]

Lovely.  I like the choice of loadout too.

 

David

[hsr]

24 minutes ago, David Womby said:

I like the choice of loadout too.

I have a Hobby Boss F-14A that I loaded up with all Phoenixes, so I figured I would do this one with more of a variety of ordnance.

 

Thanks

 

[F-32]

I think that's a splendid looking big cat!