F-14A Tomcat - Kuta time!

[PeterB]

By the start of the 1960's competition between manufacturers of model aircraft kits had started to develop and they had a financial incentive to get a kit of a new design on the shelves first so they started racing each other with mixed results. The Airfix F-4 was of an early F4H-1 whilst their Buccaneer was a prototype NA 39, their Jaguar was I believe based on the French prototype and their MRCA/Tornado was a prototype/pre- production model. I imagine Airfix did pretty well out of all of them but before too long had to issue a new moulding to bring them up to service standard. Incidentally, whilst I don't normally build prototypes I did build at least one of the Airfix P.1127, but tried to convert it to a Kestrel before throwing it when the Harrier was released in 1969 - I wish I had not done that as they fetch silly money now!

 

So that rambling intro brings me on to the the first and indeed only F-14 Tomcat I have built to date, which was the Airfix one issued in 1975 according to Scalemates, a year after the plane entered service in real life. It was rather a nice kit, but not quite representative of the actual normal service version, though Airfix have not as yet seen the need to re-mould it AFAIK. As to the “race” they drew with Matchbox and both were second to Monogram, but they had jumped the gun and issued a kit in 1972 which D&S say is loosely based on the original mock up and so rather inaccurate – there are several other US manufactured kits that fall into the same trap such as the early Revell and Monogram Thunderchiefs. Hasegawa joined in a couple of years later, and looking at Scalemates I was amazed by just how many versions they have since released. I intend to build two kits in this GB, the first of which is this Grey/White Hi-Vis F-14A issued by Fujimi in 1988 – this is a second boxing from that same year but with different decs, and I suspect I bought it around 1990 from Beatties in Cardiff, when apparently it cost me £11.95

 

 

More when I start in a week or so.

 

Pete

Edited September 14, 2021 by PeterB

[Col.]

Sadly the lovely Fujimi kit now costs significantly more Pete so I'd say that was a great investment  

[PeterB]

Thanks Col,

Anybody know how the "rubber" tyres behave - do they go brittle when painted/glued to the wheels made of a different plastic as seems to be the case with some old "rubber" tank tracks? At the moment they seem fine but a bit too shiny black for my taste.

 

Pete

Edited September 16, 2021 by PeterB

[theplasticsurgeon]

32 minutes ago, PeterB said:

Thanks Col,

Anybody know how the "rubber" tyres behave - do they go brittle when painted/glued to the wheels made of a different plastic as seems to be the case with some old "rubber" tank tracks? At the moment they seem fine but a bit too shiny black for my taste.

 

Pete

Hi Peter,  I didn't like the look of rubber tyres on this 2014 build, using the plastic wheels instead.

I still have the white metal legs, and might use them on my Revell build.

[PeterB]

Hi Tim,

 

Yours must be the so called "Royal Collection" version with extra etch and white metal legs. Mine just has the rubber tyres and some PE canopy frames. The tyres seem fine after 30 years but I probably won't use them as they are a bit "toy like".

 

Pete

[PeterB]

At the moment I have not got either the energy or inclination to build kits due to illness. I sometimes wonder if there was an alien in my family tree as on the rare occasions I am ill (other than colds etc) it always seems to be something unusual. Take for example my replacement knee joint - it seemed on the face of it that  was the "1 in 40" unlucky enough to get an infection post op, but when they took a sample and tried to identify it they could not grow a culture, so the surgeon said it was technically not an infection, and his registrar told me "I have never seen anything quite like that before" but they sorted it in the end. My current problem looks to be developing the same way - the battery of tests I have had so far cannot actually identify anything specific though it does look like it may be an infection of some sort so I need more tests but due to the strain on the NHS I will have to wait. In the meantime I am a bit like a Zombie.

 

Oh well, enough of my problems - I will hopefully make a start on this before too long and there is always the KUTA to fall back on!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Col.]

Sorry to hear that Pete and hope you're feeling better soon. Who knows, you may get a disease named after you some day  

[Roberto]

Hope you will get well ASAP! Keep fighting 👍

[PeterB]

Although there is no hope of me finishing this before the deadline I have finally made a start.

 

When Fujimi released this kit they seem to have decided to make a special effort, albeit perhaps getting a little carried away. There are an awful lot of parts, though no less than 31 of them go into making a couple of fairly well detailed engines to display on wheeled carts, complete with a nameplate – there are also separate “engine” parts for the plane itself! I have already mentioned the small PE fret of internal cockpit frames and the rubber wheels, but it seems that some later boxings included a lot more PE and also white metal u/c legs. The tub has raised instrument panels as do the two IP which could be painted up to look pretty good but I have gone down the decal route – all 22 of them, which were a bit of a fiddle but do get round the problem of trying to fit one big IP dec which would be a pain to get bedded down over the various bumps, or so I thought until I took the above pic - the unforgiving eye of the Macro lens shows that one or two of the small decs have slipped! Oh well, they will not be visible in the cockpit itself I guess.

 

I might get a bit more done between hospital visits and then it can go into this year's KUTA.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[PeterB]

And this is what it looks like in the fuselage.

The canopy does just fit but with very little clearance.

 

Pete

[Col.]

Glad to see you getting going with this one Peter

[Jabba]

A good start on the Fwd fuselage. Hope that the rest of the build goes well.

[RaceAddict]

I have the KA boxing of this Fujimi kit... every now and then I take out the sprues and the instruction sheet just to intimidate myself, and then put it back away on the shelf once again.

[PeterB]

I could do with a bit of help with this kit as Fujimi provide a number of optional parts etc with no explanation. The aircraft I intend to build is Bu No 160386 from FY76 serving as AJ200 with VF-84 Jolly Rogers on USS Nimitz. I believe they toured the med starting in December 1977 and later went back on the Nimitz in 81, being disbanded in 1986? Unfortunately Fujimi give no dates, but the kit comes with the second style of gun gas vents, ditto air brakes and the revised mid to late production narrow square ended "beaver tail". The nav light has been moved to the Port vertical fin but they have moulded the ECM fairing which they say should be removed - is that correct? Also they provide no less than 4 under the nose sensors which I suspect covers the early type with the IR sensor, the mid standard one with just the ECM fairing, the later one with the camera and ECM, and maybe one for an F-14A Plus, or perhaps the prototype. My sources do not show when the camera one was introduced - any ideas? If not I will go with the standard one without the IR as I gather it did not work and was removed pretty early on. I should perhaps also say that it has what I gather is the later layout of the 2 flare chaff dispenser boxes in "line astern" on the Port rear undersurface of the fuselage.

 

So any help on the nose sensor type and whether or not I can include the tail ECM sensor would be appreciated. Incidentally the decs do not include the small "Snoopy" on the tail which I seem to remember reading was painted on later so probably this is from the early deployment, though the kit came out in 1988 as I mentioned previously.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited December 21, 2021 by PeterB

[Jabba]

I have just looked thrugh my F-14 Detail and Scale Atlantic Sqn at the VF-84 section. There are a few pictures of aircraft in the 1976ish era. All of them have the small ALQ-100 fitted. For the rear ECM fairing I cann't really see on the VF-84 pictures, but I have found one of a VF-41 aircraft (Sister Sqn on Nimitz) from the same time period and this does not have the ECM fitted. So from that I would say that VF-84 were the same. VF-84 wre not decommissioned until 1995. Hope that this is of some help.

[PeterB]

Thanks Jabba - pretty much what I suspected. I can use one of the later sensors to replace the crap one on the Italeri A+/B, which may or may not also need the tail ECM and a few other tweaks I expect.

 

Pete

Edited December 20, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

When I first started building this kit I had my doubts about the strange way Fujimi had decided to "engineer" the fuselage and I was right - I wonder if the designer had ever actually built a kit!

OK, the seperate nose unit is a fairly common approach but the rest consists of an upper section with inner wings, seperate lower inner wings and a rather flimsy lower section which only makes contact at the front and back. Maybe it will be stronger once the seperate intakes,engine sections go on but I rather think CA glue is going to be needed to get them to stay in place as once more contact surfaces are limited. Add to that the fact that the nose section really does not match up as it has a rounded cross section whilst the rear section is more square and it is going to need a fair bit of filling and sanding to get a half way decent result. This might give you a better idea of the problem-

absolutely no support for the lower fuselage fo 4" so no wonder it is bowing inwards - nul pointes for that effort! Incidentally Fujimi have provided the so called glove vanes, which are like small canards that are deployed as the wing was swept back. The F-14A was fitted with them but at some stage they were disconnected and sealed up - mine are not going to be used as the wing will be in the forwards position I think.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Col.]

Glad to see this one is coming together Pete. Having built the kit when it first appeared I'm fairly sure some extra bracing made from the parts trees helped my cause but it was a long time ago now and my memory of the kit is hazy.

[theplasticsurgeon]

Hi Peter,  Sorry to read of all the troubles with this kit.

I've just re-read my 2014GB notes, from the link in my 16 Sept post,  but didn't have any such problems.

I didn't add any reinforcing, but I did comment about shortening the jet rear ends.

I think those tunnels containing the jets add a lot of strength.

[PeterB]

Thanks Tim,

 

You are correct about the "tunnels" - it took a bit of work to get them to fit but they do strengthen it up nicely. That just leaves the nose joint which may at least partly be down to me but it looks like it should tidy up fairly well - certainly not up to Tamiya standards though!

 

Pete

[PeterB]

In spite of the problems it is coming together reasonably well.

The wings are just a push fit at the moment. Fujimi provide two sets of inserts for behind the wing - one for fully swept and the one I used is for fully forward. The kit is clearly engineered with drooped slats and flaps in mind but I have altered them to have both closed. They also provide two choices for the nose leg - I have used the one with the oleo extended and the launch connecting arm raised as would be normal when standing on the ground but they also provide one with the leg compressed and the connecting arm down and attached to what appears to be the catapult "shoe or is it shuttle?" which I guess would look ruddy silly unless you were using a diorama with the deck and a slot for the catapult shoe to go into, otherwise the nose wheel would be up in the air! The overall fit remains a bit patchy and there has been a fair bit of filling and filing.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited December 29, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

I have made a bit of progress but still a long way to go.

See you in the KUTA.

 

Pete

[Col.]

See you in the KUTA GB Pete