Felix 100: Last Combat Cruise

[PolymerAddict]

One of the challenges for building a -D in Hasegawa or Revell is getting your antennas straight. The Tomcats 101 writeup done by VFA-103guy (Brian Marbrey) and other posts and photos by Nick Kessel really help to take the confusion out of it all. I swear, if they accepted PayPal to reimburse them on all of the times I ask for their "guru-ness" I'd be out a couple of pretty pennies.

Out of the box, the Revell turtleback looks like this:

To closer match the antenna arrangement on Felix 100 I removed the first two antennas (looking front to back) and replaced them with my own TACAN antenna and GPS dome. The little black box is where the smaller antenna was. There is a raised area molded there that I still need to sand down and I colored it black so I wouldn't forget.

Closeup of the GPS Dome:

I have a Black Box Bombcat conversion set in the stash, which came in really handy when approximating the size of the TACAN antenna and GPS dome. It felt like cheating, but hey, I'll take it

Next up are the left nose gear door antenna and the rear ECM antenna. Both are missing from the Revell kit. For the nose gear antenna, I laid out a thin piece of sheet styrene (.010") over the 1/48 line drawings included in the DACO book. From there I just traced the outline of the antenna.

For the actual antenna I used a half round strip of styrene (.100"), which also closely matched the line drawings. Also shown in this picture is the rear ECM antenna. For that I simply cut a small piece of 1/16" rod. It fit, but it might look more accurate if the rod was a smaller diameter. This was the smallest I had in the stash and I was willing to live with it:

Last but not least is the ROVER antenna that appeared on the F-14D's for this cruise. I must admit it was Nick Kessel that first pointed this out to me a while ago, and I completely forgot about it until I saw Brian's writeup also referencing this fact. Here is my attempt at the ROVER antenna:

Here is a comparison shot with a picture on Wikipedia (browsed from an iPad):

Well, that is it from the antenna front for now. I'm sure I probably missed one but I have a few weeks to figure it out

--Will

Edited June 8, 2010 by PolymerAddict

[PolymerAddict]

So what's on tap? I am almost done painting the cockpit, and once that is done I can get the fuselage halves assembled. The main issue still outstanding is the wings. I finished the flaps a few weeks ago, but the slats are proving problematic. They are a little difficult in their own right, but what complicates matters worse is this:

On the Revell kit the slats slip inside the fuselage halves when the wings are fully extended. It isn't a huge problem out of the box, but it's a show stopper if you want to extend them.

The leading edge of a real Tomcat looks like this:

By the way, this photo was used here with Kai Wolter's consent. His website Combat Edge Productions is a great resource that I visit quite often. As if his photography equipment wasn't enough to make you feel inadequate, he has also built a 1/32 Felix 100 that puts my build to shame If you have a chance, check it out on his site.

Anyway, I've already started to address the slat problem and will hopefully have some pics up soon.

--Will

[catfan]

cool things are geting done . now i just need to start mine

[PolymerAddict]

I was just snooping around and stumbled upon this picture from the cruise. It is pretty interesting as it:

1) Shows how dirty that jet was.

2) Has a Sparrow under its' left shoulder pylon. Most of the pictures I've seen show a single AIM-9. The thought of having the Sparrow there is tempting as that would mean one less missile to trim off. The Revell pylons have the Sparrows molded on.

Photo Courtesy of U.S. Air Force

--Will