Build Review : Italeri 1/72 F14 Tomcat English Version

Italeri 1/72 F14 Tomcat

This is an updated English version of my Italeri 1/72 Tomcat build review. Original Indonesian version can be found here.

The Grumman F14 Tomcat

To be honest, I not used to be a big fan of Tomcat. For me it’s just a big fat expensive interceptor. Tomcats air to air combat record is not impressive. It famous after shot down Libyan Su22, just an attack aircraft, not an agile fighter.   

Then everything changes after I watched Top Gun movie almost six times in a week. I have to admit the ingenuity of this movie displaying agility of a fat Tomcat next to small A4 and F5. I’m very impressed by Tomcat’s agility. Especially when considering its original role as a high speed interceptor, designed to shoot down enemy supersonic bombers before they can launch their missiles. Yes, bombers, not bomber, because Tomcat can track and shoot multiple targets at once with their Phoenix missiles. Even though Tomcat never performs this role, its presence must be put a lot of headache in Soviet naval planners to develop a plan to sink US carriers.    

Return to Top Gun movie. Most US enemies don’t have supersonic strategic bombers. But they have small attack aircraft that when equipped by good anti ship missile can pose a serious threat to US fleet. Such as demonstrated by Argentinean Exocet equipped Super Etendard when they sink HMS Sheffield in Falkland. Protected by agile fighter, this kind of attack will be very effective. 

Even though Phoenix missile is considered effective to shoot big supersonic bomber, its performance is questioned when facing small agile low flying attack/fighter aircraft. This situation combined by necessity of tomcat to escort US strike aircraft requires Tomcat to fight close to their agile adversaries.

To perform above role, Tomcat pilots must get out of their comfort zone, they must fly Tomcat to the envelopes, squeeze out all agility that the big fighter have. This is what they teach in Top Gun. It turns out that Tomcats variable geometry wing and body lift provides sufficient agility to perform this role, even when faced with small A4 and F5. Tomcat achieved this feat without sacrificing endurance or top speed. Salute for the ingenuity of Grummans engineers.

Like showed in the movie and a couple of real live event, Tomcat weakness is their engines. TF30 performance and reliability need to be improved to exploit great aerodynamic performance of this fighter. The cure is not that far away. GE F110 engine used in F16 is an effective and economical solution. Latest Tomcat version equipped with these engines show remarkable performance improvement. This engine fitting does not require major modification, in fact some existing TF30 equipped Tomcat are refitted with the new engine.  Externally this modification can be seen in different nozzle shape, no visible changes in intake area. Despite this economical improvement, US government decides that Tomcat is obsolete and too expensive to maintain. They replace Tomcats with more modern but still expensive and lower range, speed, and ordnance carrying capability F18E/F Super Hornets.

That’s the fascinating story about Tomcat history, now the shape. IMHO the best video capturing elegance of Tomcat shape is in the intro of Top Gun movie. That footage captures take off, landing, and ground handling of Tomcats in carrier deck. All recorded at golden hours. Shows silhouette of Tomcats with majestic orange sky background. That’s a mind changing moment for me, time to build a Tomcat model.  

Italeri 1/72 F14A Tomcat

Luckily I have one Tomcat kit on my stash, the Italeri 1/72 F14 Tomcat. This Italeri is a gift from my friend, Johannes Gunawan. I have stashed this kit more than 5 years. Not because it was a bad kit, but this is a very challenging kit. I opt to hone my skill first in less challenging kits.

Italeri 1/72 Tomcat Inbox  view

First challenge: raised panel line

Challenge appears since I open the box. This kit still use raised panel line. Even tough it’s quite fine and still acceptable in 1/72 it posed huge challenge in assembly. The raised panel line can easily obliterated by few sandpaper swipes.

Realizing this fact, I must minimize sanding process. The gluing process must be precise. To achieve the required precision part must be cleaned up and dry fitting before gluing.

Part must be cleaned from sprue gate remains. Any remaining gate will slip between joint. Worse yet if we cut into parts, it will make obvious hole in the joint. This imperfection will be very hard to be corrected without panel line obliteration sanding/filling. There are many way to clean up part. As a novice, under equipped, and unsteady hand modeler, I choose “two step” method. First I use thick scissors to cut sprue gate. This cut is to clean the part, but leave a little sprue gate remain. Next step is to clean remaining gate with hobby knife, file, and sandpaper. Therefore I can clean part thoroughly with little chance to cut trough the plastic part. This method may be unsophisticated, slow and boring. But it yields consistent satisfying result, easy, low risk, and can be performed with cheap generic tools. 

Part cleanup

Due to high precision level required, I perform dry fitting before gluing. Simulate part join process without using glue. Identify and correct imperfection in join area to achieve smooth join. Then estimate gluing points and part join angle.

After satisfied with dry fitting, then commence gluing process. Use proper amount of glue. Less glue then the join will be fragile. Excessive glue will ruins the join surface and still not produce strong join. Also pay attention of glue type. There are two common glue type used in assembly, plastic and CA(Cyano Acrylate/Superglue) glue. Plastic glue works by melting a little bit of plastic in join area, this created fused plastic. CA works by creating a strong additional layer in join. It’s often that CA crust is stronger than plastic parts. So familiarize the nature of your glue to yield good join.       

Cockpit

This kit has a simple cockpit. There is only cockpit tub, instrument panels, control stick and a pair of basic ejection seat. Luckily their basic shape is okay. And there are various raised detail on side panel and instrument panel. This raised detail will look good after dry brushing. I use Tamiya Acrylic XF19 for basic grey color and X18 for side panels. Then dry brushing the raised detail with silver color pencil. I prefer using pencil as dry brushing medium because its simpler to use and easier to control. 

Cockpit Dry brushing

Ejection seat in this kit has okay basic shape, but it was too plain. I want to add two simple but prominent detail, ejection ring and seat belt.

I use copper wire as basic material for ejection ring. I should use thinner wire instead, but I’m too late to realize this, maybe in next project. I wrap the copper wire around tweezers tips to mold it into shape. 

Then it’s time to paint. This ejection ring has yellow black stripes. Because it’s so small, my hand is not steady enough to paint it using normal or fine brush. I use toothpick instead for better control. Toothpick is a cheap but terrific tool to paint small detail. Make sure the right amount of paint and change toothpick when it already saturated with paint.

Here I don’t have easy access to detail aftermarket parts. So I must use anything that I have. Like for seat belt I use thin stripe of Tamiya masking tape. This strips then painted and dry brushed to enhance its texture.

The result is in this picture below. It’s not an exact replica of Tomcats ejection seat, nor detailed properly. But this modification is almost free and IMHO it looks better than original part under closed canopy. 

Ejection seat

Ejection Seat under canopy

Nose job

Maybe nose cone it’s the worst part of this kit. It slightly out of shape and has a lot of flash. It can be corrected by sanding and a little patience.

First is to fix nose profile with sand paper. Make sure to eliminate all flashes and nose cone points to correct direction.

Satisfied with nose profile, I decided to add pitot tube. Again lack of access to detail aftermarket parts make me improvise. I use ordinary thin needle to simulate this part. Push the needle from inside nose cone carefully. Make sure it has correct depth and direction. Then use CA glue to fix the needle. Plastic glue won’t work here because it only capable to join plastic to plastic. Wait till it set and add ballast from metal nuts around the needle. Then add more CA, then nuts, then CA. It’s like making lasagna from metal and CA instead of pasta and sauce J.

This construction method yields very robust pitot tube. It proved by a few accidental drops while I built this kit. It not bent or broke.

Node cone and pitot tube

Body assembly

Surprisingly this old kit had a good part fitting. There were gaps, but it’s minimal and easily handled. The worst gap in this kit is in side upper-lower body join. Luckily there were no panel lines in this area. The gap promptly filled and sanded flush. Plastic material in my sample is also very sandpaper friendly. It’s quite rigid but very easy to sand.    

Body gap

Another complicated part is cannon muzzle placement. Italeri provide separate cannon muzzle part, not molded on body. This scheme allows thinner and more realistic part. But sadly I cannot find solid marking of cannon muzzle placement. Need to observe carefully of Tomcat photos to approximate proper muzzle position.

Painting

To ease masking, I prefer to paint interior like air intake and landing gear parts before main body. This area colored white, one of the most difficult color to paint. Tamiya fine surface primer (white) is an easy alternative to paint white. My real favorite method is using Humbrol Acrylic white. It cover very well, even when using brush!!!. Sadly this paint is no longer available in my area.

Front landing gear bay have a quite busy detail. To emphasize this detail I perform post shading by applying Tamiya X18 semi gloss black before main white color. 

Nose landing gear bay

This internal area must be masked before main body painting. Wet tissue can be used to mask this hole like shape. Wet tissue with water, stuff into masked hole, and let it dry. Dried tissue will harden and fit snugly into masked area. It will prevent paint to seep trough into masked area. It’s easy to apply, and also it’s easy to remove. Just damp it with water and it can be pulled easily. Because water involved here, make sure tissue masking application and removal is commenced when surrounding paint sufficiently cured.

Nose landing gear bay masking

I used to apply primer first. To get good coat, make sure model in clean and dry condition. Any dust or water will severely ruin primer coat. Light grey color of Tamiya surface primer exposes any flaw in model surface. This will ease flaw correction process. After all visible flaw corrected, lightly sweep the model with 1000 grit sandpaper to smooth the surface.

Another advantage of primer is it enhanced paint adhesion. Painting step will be easier and less paint required for satisfying result.

In this model I try preshading technique. This technique enhanced panel line and give 3D look to the model. Dark color strips applied to panel outline using airbrush. 

Preshading

I use Revell Aqua Gray as main color for this model. This is the first time I use this paint brand, and I was very satisfied. It covers well and produce good shade. It only need clean water as thinner medium. Make sure proper 60-40 ratio to yield good result as recommended by Revell in paint jar.

I only use two layer of gray on this model. The black preshade color appears in subtle shadow at panel outline.

main color after preshading

Next step is to paint the exhaust. Exhaust and cockpit are prominent area in aircraft model. They provide color contrast from overall grey body. And also exhaust have natural metal color, miss treatment here and an otherwise good model can look toy like.

Metallic color works best with black and smooth primer layer. There are many better black primer alternatives, but I opt to use what I have in my stash, Tamiya Acrylic X1 gloss black. Being lazy and small exhaust area, I use regular brush. Acrylic paint, especially Tamiya is not brush friendly. The trick is to mix paint retarder with Tamiya acrylic thinner. This paint retarder comes in small bottle. You only need tiny amount of retarder, so it’s a quite economical solution. Then make sure the brush damped with thinner-retarder mix. Damp, not dry or wet. Pick tiny amount of paint from palette with this damp brush. Apply evenly to model with light pressure. Use single stroke, minimize touch up. Let it cured for one day before applying metallic color layer. 

I use Humbrol Acrylic 53 Gunmetal for metallic color. At first I have a doubt for using this paint. My bottle is in my stash for 2 years. The paint inside is in very thick state. But I pressed on. I take sufficient amount of paint to my palette and mix it thoroughly with clean water. Surprisingly the paint reacts very well with water and reach right thickness for brush painting. I just need two thin layer of paint to achieve satisfying result. The color is opaque and leave no visible (for me ) brush mark. Humbrol Acrylic paints never disappoint me. Unfortunately, nowadays is so hard to find this amazing paint.  

Nozzle using humbrol acrylic gunmetal

Decaling

Being an old kit, decal paper is in horrible condition. It looks a little yellowing and had little rough texture. Another surprise from this old kit, the decal turned to be very good. It needs longer soaking time and careful sliding. With proper treatment, the decal yield opaque marking and minimum silvering.

Silvering mitigation and better decal adhesion is achieved by another magic ingredient, the Future floor polish. Nowadays, this Future polish is hard to found, but believe me, when you see it, buy it, you never regret it. Apply a blob of future to model surface, than slide decal above it. Press with cotton bud to remove excess water, future, and air bubble. The decal will adhere properly, follow models curvature, and minimize silvering. Last spray a layer of future to protect decal from next weathering process.    

After decal

Canopy

Luckily canopy frame colored black in my chosen scheme. Black is the easiest color to apply. But still canopy frame painting is a nerve wracking process. Any mishap here will be very difficult to correct due to big-prominent transparent part.

I use masking to achieve straight and hard demarcation. Due to small tolerances, I use the expensive but well perform Tamiya masking tape. To avoid paint seeping wrinkle in masking, I perform two step masking. Masking a panel at once with one large tape is vulnerable to paint seeping. I cut masking tape into thin strips. These thin strips were used to mask outline of panel. Use toothpick to burnish this tape, create paint-tight mask. Then center panel masked with wide tape.  

Canopy masking

Better save than sorry. Event though black paint is easy to apply, I prefer to lay a layer of Tamiya surface primer.

Tomcat does not have dedicated HUD plate as other fighter. HUD imagery is projected directly into flat front windscreen. Therefore this windscreen area have green-blue tint. This layer simulated with Tamiya acrylic X23 clear blue.

Salt Masking

Rough condition at sea deteriorates Tomcat’s paint. Most operational Tomcat photos show random color fading. This random fading can be simulated using salt masking method.

Start with damp model surface. Water is involved here, so make sure previous paint layer cured. Then sprinkle random salt. The salt reacts with water in surface and will dry as random crusts in model surface. Be patient to wait salt to dry, it may need several days. This dried salt crust will act as a random mask.

Then spray lightened body color. Thin and uneven layer is sufficient. Wait for the paint cures and strip the salt mask with water. Use light wet sanding to blend colors slightly. Finish with flat clear coat. You will have a nice random weathered paint job with simple effort.

salt masking

weathered

Missiles

The most common weapon configuration for Tomcat is sidewinder and sparrow missiles in wing glove station. Fully laden Tomcat will add four more Phoenixes in under body station between engines. For this model I want something different. This might be an uncommon, but plausible configuration. I like clean under belly and this Italeri kit provide nice Phoenix missiles. So I opt for a single sparrow in center line and a pair of Phoenixes and Sidewinders in wing glove station. Don’t forget a pair of drop tank under engines. IMHO Tomcat looks odd on landing gears without these tanks.

Overall shape of the missiles is quite good. There are more accurate missiles sold as aftermarket parts. But being a cheap modeler, I opted to maximize what in the kit rather than using aftermarket parts. My skill and knowledge is not enough yet to correct length, diameter, shape, and especially nozzle part of the missile. But I will tackle the most prominent part of the missile, its fins. Being injection styrene, the fin is not thin enough. I use file, hobby knife, and sand to thin these fins.

Front fin of the sidewinder is the most difficult part to modify due to its tiny size. Maybe next time I will cut thin brass sheet into shape. For now I will optimize what I have.

Another mission impossible in modifying Sidewinder is the gyro stabilizer at the end of rear fins. Due to seeker working principle, Sidewinder must be roll stabilized. I really admit the ingenuity of Sidewinder designers. Instead of putting complicated roll stabilization system, the came up with very simple yet effective solution. They put gyroscope in each rear fin tips. These Gyros is spun by wind as the missile fly. These spun gyros have a natural tendency to counter rolling movement of the missile. This ingenious invention enables the birth of cheap, reliable, simple, and most importantly effective missile. Italeri represent these gyros as small raised box at the end of rear fins. This is quite accurate for 1/72. Unfortunately the fins were too thick for my taste. And my sanding process obliterated this detail. I don’t have any idea how to restore the raised box. So I opted to represent these gyros with paint only.      

 All missiles is given their basic color. Grey-white for Sparrow and Phoenixes. Grey-blue-black for Sidewinders.

Either Italeri don’t supply decal for missiles or it’s just me that lost the decal sheet. Phoenix and Sparrow missiles have lot of stencils and yellow and brown rings in their bodies. Reproducing the stencils without available kit decal is beyond my current skill. But I’m trying to tackle the yellow and brown ring with paint. Fortunately I still have jars of Humbrol Acrylic yellow and brown. This brand is amazing, they adheres well and smooth event tough applied only by regular brush. The challenge now is how to mask the rings.

Masking the sparrow is quite easy. The Phoenixes is another story. The rings were cut by fins, so there are lot of segmented small masking here. All masks must be placed accurately, or the ring will look odd. To reduce chances of paint seep trough complicated masking, I apply basic grey body color first. This grey color will act as a liquid mask, further seal the masked area. Then yellow and brown color applied with small brush. Thankfully the masking method works, rings painted sharply.    

Missiles

Tomcat with missiles

Conclusion

This Italeri Tomcat is a challenging kit. Raised panel line and nose cone need extra attention. Detail is quite basic, but can be compensated by scratch building and weathering. Fortunately part fitting turns out to be very good, complete weapons load out, and good price.

My finished model may not be good, nor detail, nor accurate. But I threw everything that I have on this model. And I also learn new techniques in this build process. At the end I like the end result of this kit. And I recommend this kit for modeler that has patience to struggle with this kit challenges to bring out the best of this kit.  

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