1/48th VF-31 "Tomcatters" F-14A - USS John F Kennedy April 1984 - Completed

[Dermo245]

Love it 👏

[Retired Bob]

Looks superb, gotta love Felix cats.  

[FortyEighter]

On 11/12/2021 at 10:50 PM, trickyrich said:

She’s now ready for her clear coat…… and I’ll definitely be staying away from that Alcald stuff for sure!!!

 

Impressive work to date Rich!

 

Why have you stopped using Alclad gloss??  Perhaps like me you've found it can take ages to fully dry?  Have just swapped to Tamiya X-22 which goes on easily to a nice gloss but it does seem to deplenish quickly!  The only issue I have is that then overspraying the decals with it can cause them to bubble slightly.

 

Mike

[trickyrich]

3 hours ago, FortyEighter said:

 

Impressive work to date Rich!

 

Why have you stopped using Alclad gloss??  Perhaps like me you've found it can take ages to fully dry?  Have just swapped to Tamiya X-22 which goes on easily to a nice gloss but it does seem to deplenish quickly!  The only issue I have is that then overspraying the decals with it can cause them to bubble slightly.

 

Mike

thanks

 

No I didn't realise it was enamel based, I thought it was lacquer based, so when I tried to use my normal panel wash things went a bit tragic to say the least! I do prefer to use lacquer based paints, have now found Mr Color clears which are awesome.

[Tim Moff]

Lovely job as always !

[trickyrich]

thanks...

 

she's finally finished, I've taken photos of her, just need to post them, hopefully tonight.

[trickyrich]

….and she’s done!! 

 

As usual it’s all those last little details that seem to take forever! The fit of the exhaust cans was a little bit problematic, the RH one is not perfect, but it’s not too bad. The final results of the painting looks good so am happy with them.

 

I did have one area of concern, during cleaning up the panel-line work or even when I was using the decal softener (can’t remember for sure) but either one I had some excess run onto the nose cone while I was holding it and ended up putting finger prints in the paint!!! 

 

I had to carefully sand it back, re-mask (without damaging decals) and paint, but all came out good. 

 

So here she is, super happy with how it turned out. In the end I went for a slightly weathered look.

 

Thank you for following and all your comments, all greatly appreciated. As usual there will be more photos in the gallery & RFI, plus some family shots at the end. In January I’ll be starting her younger brother, AMK F-14D in her USS Carl Vincent colours. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.... and family happy snaps!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wings unlevel]

Top Topcat! Superb work, she looks amazing!

[Retired Bob]

Lovely Tomcat Rich, an impressive family photo.   I just wish Tamiya had put the 7 vent gun cover in the original F-14A boxing, I found the QB replacement a PITA to fit and now I have the swept forward winged kit, there they are!  All 3 gun panels. 

[exdraken]

Tomkitty land over there in Aussi land!

 

congrats,

looking splendid!

[Marlin]

Lovely build(s) as usual @trickyrich

/Bosse

[Roberto]

Beautiful collection, great works 👍

[RaceAddict]

Stunning build! Love the work inside those nozzles too.

 

Interesting loadout... was that ever used operationally? I've got a Tomcat or 2 in the pipe, always looking for new ways to load them up.

[modelling minion]

Really nice result Rich, she looks fantastic.

A great line up you have going on too, all very nice builds mate.

[trickyrich]

11 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

  All 3 gun panels. 

 

I have that model as well and didn't know that, I know it would have fitted better than the Quickboost item!

 

3 hours ago, RaceAddict said:

Stunning build! Love the work inside those nozzles too.

 

Interesting loadout... was that ever used operationally? I've got a Tomcat or 2 in the pipe, always looking for new ways to load them up.

 

It is a config loadout, one of a few different "Alert Bird" configs...though not sure about the centre AIM-7. I originally was going for the 4 x AIM-9, 4 x AIM-7 config but read somewhere that the 4 x AIM-9's was not used.....who knows!

 

In the end I went for this loadout based on photo's of these birds on the USS Forrestal, most showed them with the AIM-54 pallets fitted........ beside I think this config looks super cool! 

[Thom216]

Amazing work! Looks great.

[Col.]

Tidy work again Rich, another stunning model completed, Felix' family is growing nicely.

[Dansk]

magic rich. you’re very talented.

[Christer A]

Amazing work Rich!

[helios16v]

On 11/26/2021 at 1:44 PM, trickyrich said:

I'm hoping to get the flat clear coat on tomorrow (have club EOY Comp on today, got 11 builds up), no dramas with the gloss clear and panel wash thank god/Enzo! 

 

I won't go too hard on the final weathering as VF-31 only had this variation of this scheme for a short time. While on the USS John F Kennedy they were part of CVW-3 which wore the "AC" tail code, they next moved to the USS Forrestal and CVW-6 which has the code "AE". So I am now think this scheme and tail code/Carrier name combo was during the transition between carrier wings, between April 1984 and July 1985. Plus a lot of phots of them on the Forrestal show the aircraft to be quite clean..... well compared to later, probably due to the paint finish.

 

But wow trying to find photos VF-31 on the USS John F Kennedy are proving to be near impossible, I've only managed to find that one of the 2 of them together with the "AE" tail, none seem to exist with the "AC" tail! 

 

 

 

I apologize for being late to the party.  I always seem to lose the invites.  

 

The tailcodes signify the airwing (CVW), and actually have nothing to do with the carrier.  An airwing may make multiple deployments on a single carrier, but but frequently bounce around pending carrier availability due to refueling/refit/reassignment.  During the 3 deployments/workups I made our squadron was attached to CVW-11 (NH) the whole time...and we were on 3 different carriers.

 

Lovely result in the end.  

[trickyrich]

2 hours ago, helios16v said:

 

I apologize for being late to the party.  I always seem to lose the invites.  

 

The tailcodes signify the airwing (CVW), and actually have nothing to do with the carrier.  An airwing may make multiple deployments on a single carrier, but but frequently bounce around pending carrier availability due to refueling/refit/reassignment.  During the 3 deployments/workups I made our squadron was attached to CVW-11 (NH) the whole time...and we were on 3 different carriers.

 

Lovely result in the end.  

 

there were invites???

 

Sorry you are right, I didn't word that correctly...common problem! 

 

Mmm the tail codes relate to Carrier Air Wings and not a specific carrier. I don't know how common it is for squadron to changing air wings on the same carrier. Interestingly her sister squadron, VF-11 followed the same path for most of their F-14 days until it changed to F-14B's.