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GROUP BUILD ENTRY no.65
Raffle no. 56

Airfix/Heller 1/72 F-14A,  IRIAF
by Roy McKay
Midleton, Co., Cork, Ireland

Here is my first submission. It is the Heller boxing of the Airfix F-14A. This kit was built about 12 years ago and had VF-84 decals from the kit. No filler, tube glue, brush painted, all long before I discovered Klear, Microscale, putty, and all the other magical products we all take for granted now. I wanted to try some scratchbuilding/detailing and decided to see if could I resurrect this old bird. The first job was dismantling as much as I could, then put it in a bath of oven cleaner for a few days. As a few parts were missing, I knew this was going to be fun....

The cockpit is actually good, I used some spare Hasegawa decals for the side consoles, along with a carefully painted instrument panels gives a very good effect. There was a fair bit of filler/sanding needed, and I decided to cut out the blanks at the exhaust ends, to allow for the new nozzles. I tried some re-scribing and replaced the fins from the Hasegawa kit (kindly donated from ARC). I also replaced the over-wing strakes (stiffeners?) with plastic strip, longer and taller than the Airfix bits. I really rescribed the line at the front of the flaps, as they are very visible on all my other kits. First a few runs with a Bare Metal scriber, then a few more passes with the scalpel at an angle. More filler and sanding followed, but mostly on the underside. (I was also sanding away glue smudges and fingerprints from the first time this was built).

The U/c are spares from another Airfix, with wheels from the Fujimi kit spares. The main doors are the kit, the nose doors are from the Zhengdefu.

I went with an Iran scheme, mainly as I had just read the Osprey book when this model was at paint stage. I used Humbrol exclusively, using the mixes on the IPMS Stockholm site as a guide. I decided to to a post-revolution bird (IRIAF as opposed to IIAF) as that will excuse most of the dings and dents in the rebuild model (had a hard life, you know, at war for 8 years and only now getting fresh paint....). Decals are some from Fujimi, some from kit and my decal folder (stencils etc.) and some I printed myself. Masking was done with Blue-Tac sausages, as photos show a variation of hard and soft edges to the camo, even on the same a/c. The whole lot got a mist coat of light gray (for fading, but I should've done more, it wasn't effective) and a seal of Humbrol matt cote. The undercarriage got a brush of Klear (Future) mixed 50/50 with Tamiya smoke.
I haven't added any armament to any of my GB F-14's, but that is down to time more than anything else. I also like to work on some jobs as a bunch, painting pilots is one. Painting missiles is another. I don't paint and build one ejection seat, I do about ten. I will add ordinance to these in the future, but for now it will have to wait.

Parts are from everywhere; fins are Hasegawa (accurate for Iran birds); seats, nozzles and glove pylons are Zhengdefu; canopy is replacement Airfix (Cheers Rita); Windscreen is recycled Italeri; u/c legs and ventral fins are new kit Airfix; Wheels (and rubber tires) are Fujimi spares. Kinda just like the real thing, actually. Well, whaddya all think?

I really like how the scheme turned out, makes a change as my display cabinet is filled with gray pointy things. I will do this scheme again on a better kit, probably the Fujimi one.. 

A big thanks to Steve, ScaleAir and ARC for this GB. Hope you all like it,

Roy

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