Ah yes, the Tomcat. Almost as much as I like the Phantom, I like the Tomcat. Part of it is because it is just cool, and the second is that it was a new plane when I was a young sailor. I've seen it grow up and grow old and it will soon be gone. The Hornet just doesn't do it to me like the Tomcat or the Phantom. Just not cool enough.

Well one thing about 1/48 scale is that we have kits. Monogram, Academy and Hasegawa all do F-14s and all of them are a bit of a pain to build. The simplest is the Monogram, though it is a bit of a filler hog and you'll end up sanding much of the raised detail off the side of the nose! I've built quite a few and so am experienced. The Revell F-14D is basically the same kit. In all these years, I've never built the Academy or Hasegawa version, but from all accounts, the Hasegawa is the best by a tick, but is a more fussy build. Take your pick.

 Both the VF-1 and VF-142 aircraft are in  early and very colorful markings and painted in the light gull grey over white scheme. These aircraft have white stabilators and a white radome with 'buff' tip. The VF-142 aircraft has white fins as well.

The VF-14 aircraft, however, is in the early low viz scheme of overall light gull grey, which many find the easiest to paint. I know I do and most of my big Tomcats were done in that scheme. It has reduced unit markings and little real color aside from the warning marks and insignia. Too bad as the early VF-14 scheme was most impressive. Interestingly, all three planes are very close to each other in serial number and are probably from the same production batch.

As you can tell by the number, this is one of Microscale/Superscale's earliest sheets and is their first 1/48 F-14 sheet. Typical of the time, all the data and warning markings will have to come from a special F-14 Data sheet and insignia decals will have to come from the kit or some other source.

February 2005