[1/72] Tamiya F-14A Tomcat

The F-14 Tomcat built by the Grumman Corporation was the main multirole fighter for the US Navy from 1974 to 2006.  You can read more about the Tomcat here. 

This is the Tamiya/Italeri kit and I was surprised that the quality was not up to par with what I expect from either of those manufacturers. I made a few mistakes along the way, so we can categorize this one in the “three foot build” class, i.e. it looks good from 3ft away.

Got started with putting the wings and fuselage together.  Decided to try Vallejo Model Ait acrylic “Light Gull Gray” as the color, but it comes out almost with a brownish tint and I don’t think this is quite the right color for US Navy aircraft at that time.  Maybe it’s “Light Ghost Gray”?  Anyway, this became apparent when the decals were applied.

Cockpit was OK and the nose fit together fairly well.

You can see I got a pretty smooth finish — the wings move, so they had to be painted carefully to get everything.  Then I found out that the left wing scraped a little going in and out, so I had to make repairs and do some delicate sanding.

The canopy.  Oh my, the canopy.  Did not fit properly at all.  Maybe not the greatest masking job of my career either, but let’s move on.

After much sanding and cajoing, the canopy was re-glued into position after destroying much of the paint job on both the fuselage and the canopy.  if only I had left the masking on, I might have done some more airbrushing, but as it was, it had to be repainted by hand.  

Hand brushed a coat of Future to prep for decals.

Added decals and now you can see the low visability markings are lower visibility than intended.  This cannot be the right color.

I did a little weathering after applying another coat of Future.  I used black watercolor paint with mixed results.

Calling this one a wrap!  Not one of the best kits I have every done by any means.  I have the Airfix Top Gun one in the stash, so this might be consider practice for that one.

Tamiya Acrylic

XF-1 Flat Black
XF-2 Flat White
XF-19 Sky Grey
XF-56 Metallic Grey
XF-57 Buff
XF-66 Light Grey
X-10 Gunmetal

Vallejo Model Air
71.121 Light Gull Grey USN