Feature Article 2:
F-14A Tomcat
VF-84 'Jolly Rogers'
USS Independence, circa 1989 
Academy 1/48 F-14A, Kit #1659
Aeromaster Decal Sheet - "Anytime Babe: F-14 Tomcats, Part V"

The Grumman F-14A Tomcat was designed as a two place, twin engine fleet defense fighter as a replacement for the F-4 Phantom II, after the failed F-111B TFX program. Tomcats started making their way to Navy carrier decks in 1973, and have reigned as the Navy’s premier fleet defense fighter ever since. In addition to its primary role as a fleet defense fighter, the Tomcat is now capable of performing the precision strike role as well. Unfortunately, the F-14 is scheduled to be phased out and replaced by the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet within the decade, but at least for us modelers, we are left with a large variety of kits and markings of the F-14 to build for our display shelves.

THE MODEL 

I chose to build the Academy F-14A in 1/48 for this project. The Academy kit, in my opinion, is one of the best kept secrets in 1/48 jets in that it has a number of advantages over both the Hasegawa and Monogram kits. As we all know, the Hasegawa kit can be built into a magnificent replica of the Tomcat, but its construction can be described as an abomination. It is very complex to build, and the modeler must be willing to invest a lot of time in assembling the kit. On the other hand, the Monogram kit is easier to build, but suffers from raised panel lines, and has its own fit problems in certain areas of construction.

The Academy kit offers the best of both worlds in that the panel lines are recessed, and although it shares some commonality with the Monogram kit, some of the construction problems of the Monogram kit have been corrected. My model depicts a Tomcat from VF-84 ‘Jolly Rogers’ during the squadron’s stay aboard the USS Independence, circa 1989, and is completely OOB except for aftermarket decals.

As is the norm, construction began with the cockpit. The Academy cockpit is actually very well detailed, and looks just fine out of the box for an early F-14A. On my next kit, I’ll be using the True Details cockpit set, but I wanted to build a kit straight our of the box for a change, so I went with the kit parts. The tub and panels were airbrushed with Model Master Dark Gull Gray, and then the individual instruments and consoles were picked out with Model Master Aircraft Interior Black, and Flat Black. Instrument dial faces and switches were carefully painted Flat White (I don’t like to use gray for this, as I feel that the contrast is what gives the cockpit life). When all of the detail work was painted, a Prismacolor white pencil was used to further bring out the raised detail in the cockpit. These pencils are a great way to detail cockpits, and are very simple to use: just draw lightly over the raised details, and blow off the excess. It can even be used on instrument dial faces instead of paint. When all was finished, a few switches and buttons were picked out in red and yellow, and the cockpit assembly was fixed to the upper fuselage.

One of the nice things about the Academy kit (unlike Hasegawa’s offering) is that the fuselage is broken down into complete upper and lower halves, instead of the left/right, forward/rear Hasegawa assembly. This facilitates a much easier construction, but does leave a seam line on the forward fuselage. This, however, is easily corrected with a sanding stick and a little putty.

To be honest, the panel lines on the forward fuselage need re-doing, but that's going to be done with the next Academy kit.  Another point to watch for during construction is the intakes. They are not as well detailed as the Hasegawa kit, and each intake has two large ejector pin marks which will be visible if you don’t fill them. I simply filled them with Squadron White Putty and sanded them out.

The majority of the kit’s construction followed the assembly steps in the instruction manual. One thing that I did do which deviated from the norm was to leave the vertical tails and ventral fins off of the model until construction was completed. This made it a lot easier to paint these parts Gloss Black, and apply the decals. I used MM Gloss Black, let it dry thoroughly for a few days, and used MM Non-Buffing Aluminum for the leading edges of the vertical tails. I’ve found that the MM Metalizers don’t usually adhere well to plastic, but they do adhere very well to gloss black enamel. I then painted the fin caps and edges of the ventral fins Insignia Yellow, and applied the decals.

Once basic construction was completed, I got things ready for painting. I decided to utilize a different method of pre-shading the panel lines for this model. This Tomcat was in the earlier Gull Gray scheme which holds up a lot better than the new TPS schemes, so I wanted to keep the weathering light. I traced out all of the panel lines with a Sharpie marker, and when finished, I rubbed all of them out with 5/0 steel wool. This left a nice, even set of black panel lines, and from there, the model was ready to paint.

PAINTING AND WEATHERING 

The model was painted in overall Model Master Gull Gray. I had some problems with the particular batch of Gull Gray paint that I used (it was a lot goopier than normal), but some experimentation with the thinning ratio took care of the problem. The pre-shading held up for the most part, but there were still areas that needed additional weathering, so I coated the model with several applications of Future, and applied an oil wash. I removed as much of the wash as possible, because I wanted to keep the weathering light on this model.

DECALS AND FINAL ASSEMBLY 

After all of the painting was completed, it was on to the decals. I used Aeromaster’s ‘ANYTIME BABE: F-14 Part V’ sheet, and I have to say, I think that this was the single best decal sheet I’ve ever used. The decals release very quickly from the sheet, and once in place, go down very snuggly with little or no silvering. This was the first time I’ve ever used Aeromaster decals, and I recommend them very highly.

 I also used a variety of other decals for some of the stenciling, including the SuperScale F-14 Data sheet for the weapons, and some of the kit’s decals for portions of the aircraft stenciling and ‘hot section’ markers (which I do NOT recommend – the kit’s decals are horrible!) The weapons stencils are probably the most time consuming part of decal application with each Phoenix missile taking about a half hour to decal. The walkway decals over the intakes came from CAM’s VF-103/VF-213 sheet, and also went down easily and snuggled down very well with a little Micro Sol. CAM was nice enough to provide two sets of data on this sheet, and I used the ‘slime light’ decals for the CAM sheet as well. I’m looking forward to building an F-14B, so I can utilize the rest of the CAM sheet when the time comes (their VF-103 sheet is very nice, by the way).

When all of the decals were applied, I attached the remainder of the parts. The vertical tails and ventral fins were also attached at this point, as well as the landing gear. One thing to note about this kit – it’s not designed to be displayed with the canopy open, so you may want to devise some sort of actuating rod from styrene rod or metal tubing. I wanted to finish the kit OOB, so I carefully superglued it in the open position. The remainder of the antennae, AOA/pitot sensors were also attached at this point, as I usually leave them off until everything else is finished. Otherwise, I usually wind up hunting on the floor of the workshop for them. A light application of Testors Dullcote finished off the model, leaving a slight sheen to the finish.

CONCLUSION 

The Academy F-14 is a more than viable alternative to both the Hasegawa and Monogram offerings in 1/48 scale. It features some of the best attributes of both kits, and is a lot cheaper than the Hasegawa kit. Not to say that the Hasegawa kit isn’t an excellent kit in its own right, but the Academy kit is much more hassle free in terms of construction, and a much smaller time investment is required to complete the Academy kit.

My special thanks to Steve Stohr at North American Hobbies for providing the decals, as always - thanks again, Steve!  Hope you enjoy the model – I’ll be back with another in a month or so.