Brian P: Fightertown Decals

I'm expecting to see an F-35C in the not too distant future ;)... as for the F-14D markings, only a few squadrons to pick from and I'd bet VF-101, VF-31 for sure, and VF-213 or VF-2. Hahaha

I can help you out with that. Been holding onto those jets for awhile now. Loved the CAG in 94/96 timeframe and the line jets were pretty cool too. I spent a lot of time around 31 in those years. Good times.

Don't add the canopy railings piece to the inside of the canopy. That handles95% of the fit issues there. There is a slight centerline gap between the forward doors. I found it easiest to add a shim where the door and fuselage meet to preserve the centerline

New Tamiya Tomcats are pretty much the same or cheaper than new Hasegawa Tomcats if you buy online. $70-80 for Tamiya. $60-$90 for Hasegawa. While I've invested a lot into the Hasegawa collection and a ton of AM for them, I won't build another Hasegawa. I'm dumping everything for the Tamiya (and upcoming AMK). I'll keep some AM that works and sell off the rest. Makes a full package deal for someone looking for a good deal ;) the very minor gripes I have with the Tamiya kit are the weak flare/chaff buckets, what Darren said, and the front landing gear doors. They made the front door angled too much. It should be pretty much a 90' angle and the have it an exaggerated angled forward. I'd like to see a 'standard F-14A' AM upgrade set that has NACA vents, TCS, ECM bumps, wheels, tails as 1 package. At the level of Aires/eduard/quickboost. Itmt, I do love Steel Beach set. brian

I happened to do a base visit to Miramar right after the first D showed up in 1989/90 at VF-124 They didn't have IRST for the jets at that point so the nose had the cement ballast. Was cool to see a breaks new jet with a brand new paint job. And yes, there are pictures... will have to find them one of these days. There was an original plan for VF-111/51 to get Deltas. It was canceled well before there were any jets and no jets were ever painted that way. That there was a temp or factory painted jet in VF-111 colors was a myth. At one point in 88/89, VF-1 was scheduled to get the D. That would've been cool!

There are no HUD differences for the D. Just the standard HUD for the D. They've shown that they have the D cockpit molded. I'm talking about the more subtle things like the RIOs knee panel circuit breakers, the variation between TID and PTID. Even the addition of the datalink antenna that was only on the last cruise jets for part of the cruise. Things that evolved over the life of the D ;)

Looking great and coming down to the end. Loving the progress. A quick word on the painting- these jets took a. Massive weathering beating on cruise. White paint on a carrier deck I wartime. You could go nuts and still be underweathered. Make want to check the mirrors. I believe they go on the Cabot, not the windscreen. But if you're closing the canopy, it won't make much difference. Congrats. Can't wait to see the final! brian

Hey - if you guys are getting into the extreme level of detail, how about some really accurate work in the D specific cockpit. Or the D specific details and differences for the canopy and windscreen? Or the differences in the front landing gear bay forward and right bulkhead. Include both the standard and late wheels that we've talked about. Mold the wing root lights as the actually are with the trapezoidal shape, and not the 1/3 covered over shapes that Hobbyboss and Tamiya have given us. Those are good for the entire fleet and something no kit or aftermarket set has touched. Always here to help and provide references. Can't wait to see the kit and all the amazing work you guys have put into it! Cheers, brian

Good eyes! Brian, The double circles and retctangle, appear in some pictures. They are actually extra sheet metal welded to the door. But some doesn't have. We make them there. You can sand it off with putty easily. Thanks! So you guys are modeling 1 individual aircraft with depot or squadron level repairs? This sounds like more work on your part, and leaves the modeler to do the work to get back to the baseline standard. While I'm all for extreme detail, this sounds like a poor decision. And fwiw, all depot or squadron added plates are raised add ons. And can be aircraft specific. I.e., a tug runs into a panel and it gets a sheet metal patch. So now the modeler has to fill and sand the panel lines to get it to normal. Or if you want to add these, really, the modeler just needs to cut out a piece of plastic and glue it on. So neither way you've done them is correct and either way requires work and/or scratchbuilding on the users part. And these patches are only good for 1 exact aircraft in 1 exact period in time. So maybe 1 of the markings you're including had that specific patch. But now you just dropped the accuracy of all the other jets. I would really encourge you guys to dump those single jet specific maintenance fixes and stick with the actual panel. Maybe for use on future versions, do the A specific vent on the right side trunk. That he modeler can fill for the B/D versions but it'll be there for when you get to to the A. (Like Tamiya has done). Something else you could add would be the A right front landing gear door that got modified for the D. They removed the antenna and most of them have a raised patch over that area. That was a fleet wide modification that would be cool to include.

Love the full length intake trunk piece! And really love the hinges. You managed to capture the offset pattern of the real thing beautifully. I am curious what the double circle and rectangular panels are supposed to be. Those aren't present on the real thing... That whole door should be smooth other than the fasteners and hinges. Keep up the great work! Can't wait to see more and have the kit on the bench when it's released. -brian

This really is awesome news! I personally would expect Tamiya to do the D, wait some time and put out a B and then a late A. What I think the most sense for modelers wanting all the versions is a Late A/B kit. The only difference in this is the GE vs PW engines and the pilot coaming/HUD on the B. Everything else about the Late A/B is the same. A B/D kit really doesn't make sense as the entire cockpit, seats, coamings, nose pod, and part of the ECM suite is different. And I don't see a business benefit for Tamiya to release a 2 for 1 type kit. It would cut any future type sales. Maybe down the line. but I would expect separate type boxings from them. Just my thoughts. I'm thrilled that Tamiya is expanding the Tomcat line. Figured that it was coming. And when I bought all the AM stuff to bring the A up to standard and Late A specs, figured that it was going to be done for me by Tamiya at some point. Tamiya - Here's what I'm looking for in the D. (And George's post addresses most of it, so I'll just add on my thoughts). 1. (pretty sure this is the case) Please make the vertical tails a new piece. And include the RWR bump on the top aft of the right tail below the light. 2. Please include both standard Pre-2004 wheels and the late post-2004 wheels. 3. For the cockpit, please do accurate D side panels. None of the A side consoles are the same. Hasegawa did manage to get that correct. It would also be cool if the tub had the circuit breakers by the RIO's knees for the D... 4. Please make the new pilot and RIO coamings. All kits have re-purposed the A coaming and it's not the same. Aires did a great job of it in their cockpit. 5. Please make the front faces of the GE engine and not re-purpose the PW pieces from the kit. 6. It would be really cool to have closed GE exhausts included...

You're looking at a post 6 month cruise jet that is having it's canopy and forward fuselage repainted daily for the movie with modex and names on top of that. The red area touchups are in dark ghost gray. You can see the medium gray on the spine and top of the body below the walkways. The walkways are in light gull gray. The side of the fuselage is a mix of mostly dark ghost gray from the jet before the movie and the daily paint over during production. They very likely could have mixed in light ghost gray, or most likely sanded down the top layer. You can't keep piling layers of paint on the jet. I would say the lighter areas are most likely the top layer of Dark Ghost Gray being sanded down in places. You can see the RIO ejection triangle is mostly sanded away. And if you look around the canopy names, they were changing those in some cases between each flight. The art department did a big job and the production tried to keep continuity in the filming. Use Mav's jet for Mav scenes, Icemans marked jet for their scenes. But in editing it all went out the window, and they used whatever piece of film fit the scene. Tony Scott said that they used almost every single usable frame in the movie. There wasn't more than seconds of film left on the cutting room floor. As a cool bit of continued use, The flight footage was reused for the Kevin Costner film Revenge. And there are a few shots not seen in Top Gun, that are seen at the beginning of that movie. Honestly, I would paint the jet in regular TPS and the weather the snot out of it. And use Dark ghost gray on top of the medium gray for those weathered/replacement panels.

Looking solid. Happy to see you finally filled in some of the nose panel lines but then you re-scribed them! The A-6 has no panel lines on the nosecone. Fill in the line from the separate nose piece of the kit and the connecting lines that go from the windscreen to the nose. It should be one big bulbous nose on the Intruder. (PB won't let me post pictures but a quick google search will show you how the nose radome is one big piece. -brian

Looks awesome! Please tell me the sand/browns are FS printed. Just fyi - there is no Pantone equivalent to these colors... Thinking it's time to get a 1/32 Intruder and build the 65 ODS Nose art jet!! thanks, brian