Kit: Hasegawa 7023; Tomcat F 14A+

Decals: Aeromaster 48-511; Anytime Babe! Pt IV

Additionals: Verlinden Productions 0413; MB Gru 7A

Eduard 48-155; F14A Tomcat Detail Set

Black Box 48012; F14D Tomcat Cockpit Set

Sidewinders, Sparrows and Phoenix missiles.

Kleine Brogel

Last year I was at the Spotters day at Kleine Brogel in Belgium when I saw for the first time the F14B Tomcat from VF-103, the Jolly Rogers.

Two planes attended the Spotters day, the CAG bird and a low visibility Tomcat, which carried a LANTIRN Pod.

A couple of weeks later, I bought the Hasegawakit 7023.

Reference

The Hasegawa is a complete kit with a lot of details. You can build the A, B and D version of the Tomcat with it, including the two types of engines.

There are several items included, which belong to a F14B but which the manual doesn’t mention, for example the ALQ-126 Mid- & High-Band Antennas (wing-glove). Therefor I advise to study some pictures very good in order to build a real model.

Also the website of M.A.T.S, the F14 Tomcat Reference Work by Torsten Anft is a very good reference (http://www.anft.net/f-14). I also used the walkaround book of Verlinden with many detail pictures of the Tomcat.

Finally I used two pictures of a Vf-103 Tomcat, which flew during the Kosovo War.

Picture 1: This F-14B of Vf-103 carries a LANTIRN pod on station 8B, balanced by an AIM-54C on 1B, but offensive armament is limited to a single Mk82 on station 3.

Picture 2: Vf-103 deployed to the Adriatic aboard the USS Enterprise with its LANTIRN-equipped F-14Bs, but did not drop bombs in anger.

Conversion

I started to convert the F14D RIO cockpit from Black Box to the F14B version.

Therefor I used some sidepanels from the original kit to replace the Black Box sidepanels. Also the Multiple Display Indicator had to build in because the F14D version lacks this one. The same happened to Detail Data Display Panel.

Picture 3: The conversion of the Black Box RIO cockpit form F-14D to the F-14B version. The grey panels are from the original Hasegawa set.

It was hard to fit the Black Box cockpit tub to the Hasegawa set. A lot of grinding had to be done, especially piece no. 4 “the Front Panel” of the Black Box set didn’t fit at all.

Picture 4: left side of cockpit picture 5: right side of cockpit

Construction of the main body was easy. Some grinding had to be done but this was minor.

I didn’t use the Eduard hinges of the geardoors because these hinges were too small. I simply made the original hinges smaller by polishing them.

Gears

The landinggears took a lot of work because I also constructed the main hydraulic ducts. For this I used plastic tubes from 0,1 mm to 0,5 mm (Picture 6, 7 and 8).

I also made the actuators that operate the geardoors. Unfortunately they are hard to find in the end result.

Picture 6: detail of the main gear Picture 7: hydraulic lines

Picture 8: front gear

Wings, hook and airbrakes

There are two options to construct the wings, namely in spread position or in the full afterwards position (picture 9)

Picture 9: model from above, wings in the aft position

Due to the fact that the plane with spread wings would be too large to fit in the cabinet, I had to construct the lesser interesting position although in the spread position you are able to construct more details (extended flaps en slats).

The swing construction of the wing is solid so you will always be able the swing the wings to another position.

The arresting hook can be extended.

The airbrakes can be constructed in the extended way, which I did (picture 10), although I have never seen a Tomcat, parked on the flightdeck with extended airbrakes. But I thought it was more interesting to construct the airbrakes this way.

Picture 10: extended airbrakes

Weapons

I decided to make a Bombcat.

In a magazine, I found a picture of a VF-103 Tomcat, flying above Kosovo with one Mk 82 bomb (see picture 1). This configuration I rebuild, but choose to take two Mk83 Iron bombs.

I constructed two frontpallets to hold the Iron Bombs. I made special ejection racks for the bombs, which are not included in the Hasegawa kit (picture 11)

Picture 11: detail bombs including the ejectionracks

On the wing, the Tomcat on picture 1 carries one Phoenix missile (a Tomcat without a Phoenix isn’t a Tomcat) (picture 12). The other stations of the model got two Sidewinders and a Sparrow (picture 13).

On the aft position at the belly I glued another Sparrow.

Picture 12: Phoenix and Sidewinder missile Picture 13: Sparrow and Sidewinder missile

Weathering

The Tomcat on the picture had flown often, so it was very dirty.

I tried to weather the model exactly like the Tomcat on the picture.

The housing of the engines is very dirty but to the front, the Tomcat looks clean.

The missiles are relative clean and contrast with the bodywork.

I gave the model a flat coat.