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GROUP BUILD ENTRY no.87
Raffle no. 78

R/M 1/48 F-14D, VF-213 Black Lions
by Kevin Ushko (kushko)
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

This is my entry for the Group Build.

This was my first F-14 kit, and was it ever an experience! I built the 1/48th Revell F-14D as a member of VF-213, Rampant Lions over Afghanistan using the TwoBobs decals. I choose this model strictly because I liked the decals! This was built mostly built out of the box, but I did use some Eduard PE for the cockpit and some exterior pieces.

This build was the most frustrating I've done. Not so much because of the kit fit issues, as it was because of the "mishaps" that I managed to make while building the kit. The first was putting the fuselage halves together before completely cutting out the boarding step doors. Second, while gluing the fuselage halves I thought I'd try using "thin" super glue; I ended up with too much glue and most of it went from the inside of the fuselage to the outside, gluing the fuselage to the cutting board on my desk. The final major mishap was while working on the exhausts; I ended up spilling a bunch of medium grey paint on my desk, right "into" both exhausts which were sitting on the desk after I'd glued the PE details into them.

I created an unusual weapons loadout for this model. I started with the loadouts listed in the TwoBobs decals sheet I used. I started with 2 GBU-10s on the belly. But according to the loadouts on the TwoBobs sheet, that meant the aircraft wouldn't carry a Phoenix. I had to build my Tomcat with a Phoenix as well. So I ended up with a Phoenix and a sidewinder on one pylon and a sidewinder and the Lantirn pod (from the Hasegawa Weapon set D) on the other pylon, with the 2 GBU-10s underneath.

After all the mishaps I had, I just about gave up on completing the kit. But I decided to finish this kit and use it as a learning experience. I'll be picking up another copy of this kit and some Steel Beach and Eduard upgrades and do up a better built F-14D Tomcat in the future.

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