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GROUP BUILD ENTRY no.123
Raffle no. 110

Revell 1/72 F-14D, VF-31 Tomcatters
by Tom Choy (Supertom)

This is the Revell kit, built with some minor modifications and aftermarket details. While the detailing can be heavy-handed (someone remarked that the Mad Matchbox Engraver worked on this kit). I've no idea why the detailing was so heavy-handed compared to their Tornado and F-16 kits, but as it is a much more affordable alternative to the nice Hasegawa and Fujimi kits, I have no complaints. To do a true F-14D, however, you'll need to make two significant cosmetic changes:

1) Replace the ejection seats. The kit seats are a mix of GRU-7 sides and cushions with the top of the SJU-17. I opted for True Details seats, and added the canopy breakers using little triangles cut out from sheet styrene. The seats were undersized (or too short, I haven't been able to figure that out) so I raised them by gluing a plastic block at the base of the seats to raise them up.

2) Add a HUD. The kit does not provide a HUD for the D model. Just add a small clear plastic rectangle and you're done, or go nuts and build the framework around it.

Some of the F-14Ds out there do not have the green/blue tinted canopy. My recommendation is to do as much research as you can on that particular bird to find out whether it is tinted or not. I have only been able to find three pictures of this bird, of which only one of them shows the canopy. I thought the windshield on this was not tinted, but a closer look at the picture this morning shows that it was tinted after all.

There are three problem areas on this kit:

1) The rear fuselage is separate so that Revell could switch the tails out between the A and D models. This leaves a rather large gap that, if carefully filled in, will look like a panel line.

2) The front fuselage and center fuselage mates together in an area that does not follow the panel lines. This leaves a very unsightly seam that is very hard to conceal as the area itself is hard to sand.

3) The nose pitot tube is molded on the nose half and has a tendency to break off.

Other than the three issues mentioned above the kit goes together quite well. Depending on how well you assemble the tail you may or may not have trouble getting the burner cans to match the contours of the fuselage.

The model is painted with dark ghost gray uppers and light ghost gray undersides, with patches done by using various other shades of gray. The non-slip surfaces were masked off and airbrushed, then "worn down" by airbrushing lighter shades and sanding the area lightly.

The decals from 72-815 are botched. Felix is printed in register on the port side, but on the starboard side Felix's face is distorted as the white outlines were offset by 2mm. Oddly enough the rest of the decals were in perfect register, and the rest of Felix's body on the botched side was fine. Squadron was kind enough to send me a replacement sheet but it had the exact same problem, leading be to believe that the artwork was botched from the very beginning. I am quite sure that the entire batch of 72-815 is similarly botched. In order to correct the problem, I scanned in the sheet, cut out Felix's image on the correct side, reversed the image and replaced the botched image. As I was doing this I realized that this was an opportunity to make a unique model by making the Christmas version flown over Afghanistan in 2002 (I love Christmas schemes) by adding a Santa hat to Felix's head. The hat itself took a few days to perfect as I only had a single angled close-up shot glossed off Google. The corrected decal was then printed out of my HP Deskjet 5740 on white decal paper. My other complaint with the Superscale sheet is that they had only included a single pair of ejection warning triangles, instead of two pairs. I am disappointed that the sheet was done so badly - this experience has made me very reluctant to buy another one of their sheets.

The AIM-9 and AIM-7 are from the kit, though the nosecone of the AIM-7 had to be reshaped as the nose was very blunt (I wonder if this was to make it child-safe). The GBU-10s and bomb racks are from Hasegawa's Weapon Set VI while the AN/AAQ-14 pod and rack are from Hasegawa's Weapon Set VII.

This turned out to be a very long project, due to the extra work modifying the decals, and adding extra parts, but well worth the effort. I'll be placing this in my cubicle during Christmas along with any other Christmas projects I may have by then. I had a lot of fun on this and I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I do!

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