Sheet:

Superscale 48-118: F-14A / A-7E

Units: VF-41 and VA-86

Price

Long out of production

Reviewer:

Scott Van Aken


The F-14s first kills were a pair of hapless Libyan Su22s in 1981 (called the Gulf of Sidra Incident). Since then the poor F-14 hasn't really done as well as would be hoped in terms of A-A kills, with the USAF hogging all the glory during Gulf War I. In fact, I do believe that the total F-14 kills come to 2 Su-22s, 2-Mig-23s (all Libyan) and one Iraqi Mi-8 during Gulf War I. A pretty sad epitaph for such a potent weapons system.

Those first kills are the subject of the Tomcat on this sheet. In overall gloss gull grey, both of the planes involved in that action are provided along with  later Modexs for the planes. All is explained in the instructions. All the proper canopy names and such are provided, but no national insignia, which is a bit odd. You'll have to find an alternate for that. Kits for this abound from Monogram, Fujimi, Hasegawa and Academy. None are particularly simple to build, with the Hasegawa being the most detailed and the most difficult.

The rest of the sheet is taken up by the CAG A-7E (minus all the CAG colors), from the same time period. VA-86 always had great markings and these are for gull grey over white and includes the drop tank markings. Again, insignia are up to where you can find them. Recommended kit for this one was the only one available at the time, the really horrible ESCI version. Nowadays, the  Hasegawa kit is the only real choice.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has over 200,000 visitors a month, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.