NASA F-14 Tomcat 834

[ego1138]

In my ever expanding quest to actually get better at this hobby, I decided I would try my hand at another airplane. I have always had a thing for the F-14 Tomcat and decided to pick up the Hobby Boss 1:48 kit, alone with the Aires resin cockpit set. Also picked up some Hasegawa USAF pilots (which I have had to heavily bastardize to get to fit into this cockpit).

I really wasnt sure what kind of paint job to give it. Wanted to do something unique, instead of the same 4 tomcats you always see everyone doing. So when searching around, I discovered that NASA two F-14s during the mid-late 80s out of Dryden for doing various testing (spin control and recovery, etc).

So, thats the way Im going.

Getting into the construction phase now, but cannot get very far without having the cockpit complete. Im almost done it now, hopefully another two nights . . . . Im more or less stuck at getting seat belts on the pilots (as I want this bird to be done in flight).

So, without further adieu . . . my progress so far.

The first two pics are of the plane I will be doing . . . I think I will just do the one with the white wings.

Next up are some WIPs of the cockpit. It does have a dull cote on, and does not look as shiny in person.

I do end with one last question though . . . . because of the livery I am doing, I will need some custom decals done up. I have them all designed up, but, I need someone who can print white decals for the NASA logo and around the nose numbers. Does anyone have any good recommendations of who to use?

Thanks for looking.
Jer

[ego1138]

Work goes slowly, but, cockpit tub is pretty much done. Looks like I'll have to do some filling and painting at the rear where it joins up with the fuselage, but, all in all, I'm pretty happy.

Wanted to give a shout out to Neb for offering his help in trying to figure out which colour of flight suit the boys at Dryden wear.

Was disappointed though that he wasn't aware of how the Dryden pilots all wear clown shoes.

(some might say the boots on my pilots suffered an unfortunate accident while heating up their legs to make them fit in the cockpit . . . . I say it was intentional, and that's just the footwear they prefer to wear)

Thanks for looking.

[Neb]

Off to a good start! What an interesting subject----not your everyday Tomcat!

[ego1138]

Thanks. Like I say, wanted to try something different.

Got my cockpit all glued together now. Wings assembled.

Having a horrible time getting a nice smooth finish to the air intakes to the engines, but, hopefully tonight will be my last round of puttying, and I can paint the inside of her up, and glue it into the fuselage.

To celebrate getting the cockpit all glued up though, did some dry fitting with the rest of the bird to see how she'll look.

Been a nice kit so far.

[Tiberious]

Love that cockpit! And nice choice of subject. The F-14 is big and sexy, but not many people do the more odd birds.

If you like the Tomcat so much, the next build you can do is a bash of of the mock-up.
http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-history-f14a-303b.htm

It's one I'm thinking of doing it... sometime...

[ego1138]

So i need a little advice here from some of you more expert folks.

I'm about ready to put the two halves of the fuselage together, but want to make sure I got all my bases covered before I do.

What I'm wondering about, is the underside. This being a NASA bird, there's no weapons on it at all.

Which I don't think was considered by the fine folks at Hobby Boss for being an option! hahaha

So . . I've attached a picture of the underside . . . . Theres a main "groove" (since I don't know the proper term) that runs down the middle, and then two more grooves on the underside of the cockpit. As you can see in the pics, there's precut holes in these grooves to assist in mounting the weapons.

Would anyone know, or have any pictures of, just what these would look like if no weapons were attached? is it just going to be as simple as filling these holes flush to the gooves and sanding? Would something else have been put in these spots?

Hoping someone smarter than I can shine a light.

Thanks

EDIT - Here's about as best of a pic as I can find of the underside of one of these nasa f-14s. But still doesn't show enough, other than to show that it looks pretty smooth down there.

[jake88]

Where are you at on this man? Your work is looking great! I love F-14's!

[ego1138]

I'm actually just about to start up on it again. I was real close to more or less getting ready to paint. Just had to finish up polishing the canopy, and glueing the engine nozzles on.

Then the unthinkable happened. In my laziness of not wanting to pull out the airbrush, I just wanted to paint the inside of the engines in a black colour, so I just grabbed a rattle can. Perfect colour that I was going for. Sprayed them.

Didn't notice that the paint leaked out from under the masking and completey gunked up, melted the nozzle. Ruined.

It's taken me three months to get replacment part for it . . which just arrived this week!

So . . . just hoping to put the finishing touches on my Slave 1, and then want to get back to this bad boy

Thanks for the encouragement though . . . I can definitely use that too!