MRC/Academy

1/48 F-14A Bombcat

Kit Number: 12206

Reviewed by  Mark Dice, IPMS# 31326

MSRP: $42.00 Web Site: www.modelrec.com The U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat was developed by Grumman Aerospace after the collapse of the F-111B project and entered service in 1972, serving as the U.S. Navy's primary maritime air superiority fighter until its retirement in 2006. This kit depicts a late era Tomcat that has been adapted to serve as a precision strike aircraft, "Bombcat", filling the gap between the retirement of the A-6 Intruder and the entrance of the F/A-18E/F Hornet into fleet service. The Kit: There are eight trees of parts (one clear) and two large fuselage halves (upper and lower) of gray green plastic. The trees are packed in plastic clear bags to prevent lost parts. The parts are flash free, with clean recessed panel lines and very good details. A closer look finds many ejector pin marks and mold seams that will have to be cleaned up. A notable thing about this kit is the precision weapons tree that has been added to the kit. You are given two each GBU-31 JDAM and GBU-24 Laser guided bombs, plus an AN/AAQ-14 LANTRIN pod. You also get the mounting pylons for those weapons and replacement mounting pylons for the Sidewinder and Sparrow missiles to replace the rather rough looking parts from the earlier boxing. You also get plenty of Air to Air missiles (Phoenixes Sparrows and Sidewinders), as well as a TARPS pod. No shortage of weapons here… The 12 page 8x12 instruction booklet has 15 building steps with several options for weapons load outs and two and a half pages setout for painting and decal placement. Color call outs are for Gunze Sangyo Aqueous and Mr. Color. Two aircraft from VF-154 aboard USS Kitty Hawk in May 2003 are represented in the painting and decal section. One is the CAG bird and the other is the CO's. The aircraft are gray on gray with the vertical tails and upper fuselage around the cockpit painted black. Construction: Construction starts with the cockpit. The details on the instrument panels and side consoles are raised and look pretty good once painted and detailed. The ejection seats are 4 piece affairs with decent detailing and once built are a tight fit into the cockpits. You also get two pilot figures with separate heads and arms. The nose wheel well mounts to the bottom of the cockpit, which then sits into a small piece of the lower fuselage which then is attached to the large upper fuselage half. Fit here is tough and care is needed to reduce the amount of sanding at the upper/lower fuselage joint. The upper and lower wing halves are next. These are geared to allow the two wings to connect and spread and fold as they do on the real aircraft. I recommend lots of dry fitting of the wings and fuselage halves. The pivot holes in the wing were small and a very tight fit and if not corrected when the wing is spread it can cause the fuselage forward of the wing to split, as it did on mine. Once you've figured out the wings, the upper and lower fuselage halves are joined together. Again, dry fit these together. Fit was pretty poor and there was a wicked step and seam where the front ends of the upper and lower fuselage halves meet. This required a lot of filling and sanding to correct. So much so, that I lost heart with this project for a long time. I lost a bunch of detail on both sides and the underside of the fuselage. The same issue popped up when the intake trunks were installed on the lower fuselage. Most of my time spent on this project was the filling, sanding, and rescribing of these problem areas. Extra time and care dry fitting and sanding to fit can reduce a lot of the sanding needed to make these areas look decent. From this point on construction was considerably easier. The landing gear, vertical and horizontal tail surfaces, various ordnance/pylons all fit together well after cleaning up the seams and ejector pin marks. The only real negative was all the clean up work and seam removal needed on the landing gear. The canopies are very clear, cleanly molded, and very lightly marked for the framing outline. Painting: A half page in the instructions is provided for the painting and decaling of the ordnance. Different color options are provided and decal placement is well identified. Good job to Academy here. The aircraft painting and decal instructions cover two pages. One page for common data and painting needed for both aircraft. The other page covers the aircraft specific colors and decaling. Both aircraft are from the same squadron and have basically identical paint schemes, so overall the differences are pretty few. You will have to do a lot of hopping back and forth between pages as you go along with both the painting and decaling. FS color numbers are called out in the paint reference list at the bottom of the two painting guide pages. I used Model Master Enamel and Tamiya acrylic paint with no problems. Future was used for the gloss coat, with no problem. Decals: The decal sheet is 6x10" and just packed full of aircraft/ordnance stenciling decals. The sheet is printed clearly and carrier film appears to be very thin and doesn't have a lot of extra excess film to trim off. Once I started decaling, I found that you have to be extremely careful with the longer thinner decals. They will roll, twist, and fold over very easily and once that happens it's a chore to get them unrolled and in several cases, I lost the decal (thank goodness for spares boxes). They also often didn't want to slide around into position very easily either and one of the more fun parts of the hobby for me, became a bit of a chore… It took the better part of a Sunday and a couple evenings to get them all done, with several breaks to go ease the frustration (thank goodness for beer). The decals for the weapons did not settle down around the various bumps and lumps on the weapons at all, when put on as one decal. They'll have to be cut up and put on piecemeal instead of as one big decal. Once in place they did settle down good and reacted well to a good coat of Solvaset solution (no wrinkling or bubbling). The decals also didn't silver when the dull coat was applied as long as I had made sure they were settled down nice and snug in all the panel lines. Final Assembly: After the dull coat dried, all the final little pieces (antennas, pitot tubes,. etc…) were installed followed by the canopies. The forward windscreen fit just fine. The main canopy did not fit due to hitting the top of the pilot's seat and there's nothing in the instructions about mounting the canopy open. No canopy strut, nothing. I just glued mine in the open position. Conclusion: Overall, I found this kit to be a challenge and that is a good thing. I consider myself an intermediate skill level modeler and I had a tough time with this kit and at one point, the frustration level hit a point that I just gave up on it for a time (a long time). I learned something during each phase of this build, which I hope will improve my skills as a modeler overall. I can recommend this kit but really only to intermediate or above skill level modelers. I think it will build into a very nice kit but it is not a weekend build or shake the box and a plane falls out kind of kit. There'll be some work involved here… Pros are the abundance of weapons (your spares box will thank you), good detailing, and a decal sheet that has all the stencils that you need. Cons are very poor fit between the upper and lower fuselages at the front end and poor intake fit, both requiring much filling and sanding. The decals once they're wet are a challenge but look good after settling in and dull coat. Thanks to MRC/Academy for the review kit. And thanks to Dave Morrissette for the kick in the pants to get back on track and finish this kit!!

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