Swordsman422

Thanks, Neeko. All the other stuff I knew, but the GPS dome I couldn't find references for and didn't trust the instructions. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

I am building the F-14D as a VF-11 line jet from 1996. Would this jet have had the GPS antenna on the spine? The instructions call for it on all options but I'm not sure this is true.

Anyone have some shots of the VF-11 option they could share? All sorts of imagry has been made public about the three high-viz liveries but nothing on the Red Ripper jet that I have seen.

Sold for the VF-41, VA-82, and VA-35 markings!

Desert Storm and mid-90's era VF-213 would be cool to see. Gee, Brian. I guess you better stay in business and keep making decals.

Call this a bit silly, but I think the aircraft on AMK's box art launched from the waist catapults and the perspective is near the bow. The compressed oleos make no sense though.

Great! Now I can buy 4 or 5 of them like I should have done with the first release.

Yeah, that was him. I was saying he could rerelease that sheet or at least those jets from the movie.

Of course, rereleasing the Top Gun movie jets wouldn't be a terrible idea. Maybe a sheet with the Tomcats, Scooters, and F-5s and some of the background airplanes. I remember a row of VF-1 jets with black wolf heads on the tails in one scene.

How about a series of full coverage compilation sheets like the new one you are about to release that features one or two of the jets from several of your sheets? A CAG or CO and a line jet (or two if the markings don't vary much) from say 3 or 4 sheets all together. Just thinking of the earliest Fightertown releases as an example, a CAG and a line jet from VF-24, VF-143, VF-102, and VF-211. With the F-14D coming out, maybe do last cruise VF-31 CAG, CO, and a line jet on a sheet with VF-213 CAG, CO, and line jets. This might be a way to provide subjects you've already covered without re-releas

The Hasegawa F-14 was top of the pile for so long that it had something of a coconut effect on the hobby. I remember folks questioning the Tamiya kit tail for a while because it didn't match the Hasegawa tail and it turned out the Hase kit was wrong, being too tall and too narrow. But it was telling that the Tam kit came under fire briefly for not matching the Hase shape even when that shape was incorrect.

The Academy F-4B boxing has the parts to build it as nearly any B or N variant. I think you should be alright.

The HB kits were, of course, newer technology than the Hase kits, so engineering and fit are better. But they have a laundry list of their own issues. The intakes, boarding steps, and a myriad of other shape problems and inaccurate details plague the HB. As an ASE geek, I was annoyed that there were no pilot figures (a hot button issue with me, offering the option to build the plane in a configuration where the crew must be in the cockpit and yet having no crew in the box). I thuroughly enjoyed building the one HB Tomcat I built, but regret using the decals I did on it.

So far I have probably built 40. That's in 18 years of my "modern" building career. Of those 40, easily 30 of them were the Academy kits with maybe various conversions. It took me a lot of time to become uncomfortable with the errors on that model and I haven't built an Academy Tomcat in about 7 years. The right kit can give me a lot of energy to build and for a long while, the Academy kit was it. The Tamiya F-14 series is exactly what I have been waiting for, and the only reason I haven't been grinding out 5 a year is due to the limits of the original release. I plan on building 6

The Tamiya M1A2 is also based on a nearly 30-year-old IPM1 mold. Comparing the new Meng kit to the Tamiya is like comparing Tamiya's F-14D to the Revell Monogram F-14D, which is based on the 40-year-old Monogram F-14A with some new parts thrown in. Newer kits of any origin have a general tendency to be better than older ones of any origin. It is very rare (and dissapointing) for this not to be the case.

I wasn't offended. I was agreeing with you in a self-deprecating way. I hope that there are extra arms to go with the bodies. I too have several Navy jet kits for which no pilot figures are included and the spare body will do nicely. I don't think I'll make much hay about an HGU-33/MBU-14 combo in a pre-1978 airplane as long as I have a crew for the plane. It's pretty annoying when the manufacturer fails to provide aviators for the plane, regardless of accuracy.

Being as much an ASE geek as I am a model geek, I'm in that population of four so I am glad that they did it. And most of my builds are post-HGU-33. But it is a good looking helmet and getting -33 heads with the MBU-14 mask with enough detail to tell the difference in this scale is very nice. You can probably add 2 more people to the group who cares at about accurate helmets.

I have 3 Hasegawa kits I bought only for the decals. I have only ever built the Hasegawa F-14 to completion once and was so bitterly disappointed in the experience that I only bought them again for markings the aftermarket didn't offer (yet). I plan on at some point parting with them sans decals for more Tamiya Tomcat money. Especially after their D comes out.

They probably included the original pilot bodies because the SV-2B/LPU-21 combo was still in use up until the early 2000s when these were replaced by the CMU-33/LPU-33 set. The old body is appropriate for the VF-11 option.

Don't hit me, but I go through hobby ebay stores for kits (and kits only. Sprue Brothers for AM. Decals from the maker. Brick and mortar HS for paints, etc). Shipping is free at a lot of those based in Japan. Even Horizon does free shipping from their ebay store sometimes. Sure, it won't arrive tomorrow but I ain't in a hurry.

I think the F-14A MSRP was like $115 US or so but it hit the street at about $80 if you order from Japan. We'll see. I'm buying anyway. Street price will determine how frequently.

It'll probably street for ~$85-$90.

15 specifically D-model Tomcats. Part of a larger group of 64 total F-14s of all types. That I have decals for, anyway.

Definitely will build the VF-213 and VF-11 options. I have 15 Tomcat Ds planned so nice that the kit has a couple of subjects I want to build.

For these two particular options there is for the first the OOP Fightertown sheet and for the second nothing. I can't say I blame people for hoping kit decals cover subjects NOT available in AM.