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Which chinpod for F-14A (1974) VF-1 Wolfpack modex 100


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Not sure at what point in the cruise that pic was taken but without comparing bu no’s that may not be the same NK100  as other pics you’re trying to compare chin fairings to.  Remember they lost more than a couple ac so NK1xx numbers changed during the cruise. 

Also, there were various chin fairings during that cruise on the Wolfpack ac.  Some had nothing, or just the small ecm bump, the IR fairing, and despite statements to the contrary, at least twice that I can recall, I saw the flat face TCS type fairing. 

I wasnt in VF-1 but was a troubleshooter on A-6’s so got to see the tomcats all the time. And I much preferred VF-1’s markings so spent most of my time checking them out ; )

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26 minutes ago, Gary F said:

Not sure at what point in the cruise that pic was taken but without comparing bu no’s that may not be the same NK100  as other pics you’re trying to compare chin fairings to.  Remember they lost more than a couple ac so NK1xx numbers changed during the cruise. 

Also, there were various chin fairings during that cruise on the Wolfpack ac.  Some had nothing, or just the small ecm bump, the IR fairing, and despite statements to the contrary, at least twice that I can recall, I saw the flat face TCS type fairing. 

I wasnt in VF-1 but was a troubleshooter on A-6’s so got to see the tomcats all the time. And I much preferred VF-1’s markings so spent most of my time checking them out ; )

 

Excellent input Gary...you make some good points. And yes, early Wolfpack markings are among the very best ever carried on USN jets!

Rich

Edited by RichB63
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Also notice many variations in markings in the photos. Looks like the VERY early VF-1 had "Wolfpack" on the tails. Note that some have "USS Enterprise" on the wing glove, some don't, and sometimes on the tails. But so far, it looks like only nose-number 101 had the black trim around the canopy. Also notice in the first photo of this thread, the CAG bird (100) that the red stripe on the tail merges into the wolf head. Others have the stripe ending with a semicircle that separates the stripe from the wolf head. 

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Woohoo!!! After a long journey, its finally starting to look like an airplane... (this is my favourite stage, decaling and weathering :P)

Thanks for all the expert help - thought you might be curious to the stage I'm up to so far...

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Looks real nice. The kit came with the early boat tail and gun exhausts, right?  I really wish Tamiya had done that with their 1/48 F-14A release. I mean, it wouldn't have taken that much extra work. Oh well. The early VF-1 scheme is my favorite Tomcat scheme. Please post pics of yours when its done.

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Getting closer, doesn’t look like I’ll finish before I start work Monday 😥. (Love 70’s hi-viz graphics - come shoot me, if you dare)  I'm going to try to finish up the plane and leave all the ordinance and tanks till the weekends between work (maybe a big break between finishing it up unfortunately).  So glossy, don't really know how to weather it to make it look a little more realistic, its kind of looks like a matchbox metal diecast toy at the moment.  I still gotta future clear coat the decals, and fix the lower ventral fins (stupidly I painted them red both sides, and only noticed that they were only red on the outside after I decaled it - argh!) - maybe a light use shading and semi-gloss clear coat would take the "toy-ish" ness down a bit.  Gotta do the wing sweep dirt pattern on the wings (yes the wings aren't pushed in yet), but minimally since these are new planes in 1974.  I'm not used to the Navy taking care of their planes 😛 (bunch of little details like the black anti-glare pattern in front of the cockpit and gunmetal gun shield that will be sprayed at the very end along with the wing bags that I want to be flat finish)

 

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Noticed a bunch of decal instruction errors and molding panel lines that were on the starboard side that weren't mirrored to the port side (like rear formation lights) - weird.  Crazy that there were so many options available in this kit for so many version, but not ALQ-100 antenna (they even had separate front windshield pieces for the singular vent across or the 3 little sprayers - they even had separate ventral fins with the rear tow bar connector deployed! - but they didn't have the wing root without the later ECM bump - argh!!!).  It feels like the decals are all a bit oversized, the main ones seem 5% oversized but some of the smaller anchor point and other such data stenciling seem 10-15% oversized.  It was hard to get everything lined up especially the front nose red stripe as every element was a separate piece even the blue insignia was a separate piece and all the slime lights, rescue arrows and yellow warning stenciling were all separate pieces.  The tail graphics were a bit oversized as well and I had to trim the rear portion down to fit them properly in the right part of the tail.  Its a weird kit, so over detailed and complicated in some areas, and then just dumb omissions and mistakes in others.  Definitely not a beginner kit.

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Couple of notes;

 

1) The gun blast port (gun shield?) should be chrome silver, we kept those things clean.

2) Don't forget the TIT Probe for the port side, it goes just above the vent for the rescue arrow, in the below pic you can see it just above the last 0 in the modex. The early block 65 you are depicting would have it.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2Fcf%2F12%2F8d%2Fcf128d412f02d54dc4dd92e81776226f.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.co.uk%2Fpin%2F319826011020485070%2F&tbnid=ms0DogEbfzPmRM&vet=12ahUKEwjG6eLg4N7rAhUOajABHYUfAm4QMygBegUIARCjAQ..i&docid=Ee9lprwcgF9JCM&w=1024&h=807&q=VF-1 F-14 Block 65&hl=en-US&ved=2ahUKEwjG6eLg4N7rAhUOajABHYUfAm4QMygBegUIARCjAQ

3) Don't forget the yaw string.

4) As a side note, the 1974/75 VF-1 Tomcats did not have the starboard (right) side non-skid walkway, just the port side had the walk way.

 

As for weathering, I would just spray the plane flat, these were new planes and hadn't had a chance to weather any for the time period you are doing.

 

And I too screwed up the ventral fins when I did mine, I just left both sides red though. 😉

 

hth

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Thanks for the notes!  The gun blast shows a dark metal in all the photos, maybe its the way it was reflecting.  What does this probe look like, I just see a tiny mark, is it like a AOA probe or something flat?  How do I do the yaw string in this scale?!?!  Argh, I was just following instructions for the walkway, I can't scrape off the decal now - damn it!

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I just realized that the first 101 with the black canopy trim (perhaps the ONLY one with it) also had its nose cone painted gray over white, not white with the cream forward portion. It also appears to have the early cut-back gun muzzle with the longer blast panel. I've stripped the decals from my recent Academy model in preparation for refinishing it as an early VF-1 as it appeared in 1975 over the evacuation of Vietnam. 

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3 hours ago, wm_cheng said:

Thanks for the notes!  The gun blast shows a dark metal in all the photos, maybe its the way it was reflecting.  What does this probe look like, I just see a tiny mark, is it like a AOA probe or something flat?  How do I do the yaw string in this scale?!?!  Argh, I was just following instructions for the walkway, I can't scrape off the decal now - damn it!

It's exactly the same as the probe on the right side, just below the canopy/above the Stars n Bars.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Ffarm4.static.flickr.com%2F3292%2F2866230861_4a5bcb6546.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickriver.com%2Fphotos%2Fdivemasterking2000%2Ftags%2Ff14%2F&tbnid=5KVKK1NmGO_kBM&vet=10CCwQMyjCAmoXChMImLuYwJzf6wIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEAQ..i&docid=HmeoDZbAgnCj2M&w=500&h=335&q=F-14 Tomcat nose&hl=en-US&ved=0CCwQMyjCAmoXChMImLuYwJzf6wIVAAAAAB0AAAAAEAQ

 

I looked at the kit online (I don't peronnally have it) and it looks like the starboard side TIT probe is already molded on so you just need to scratch build one like it and put it on the port (left) side. It doesn't have to be perfect since at that scale it's basically just a little nub sticking out of the side of the jet.

 

As for the yaw string, for 1/72 scale, just paint a thin white line about a 1/4 inch long and you'd be good to go, it doesn't have to be perfectly straight (don't make it a straight line, it's a piece of string, not a rod).

 

hth

Edited by GW8345
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11 hours ago, wm_cheng said:

It was hard to get everything lined up especially the front nose red stripe as every element was a separate piece even the blue insignia was a separate piece and all the slime lights, rescue arrows and yellow warning stenciling were all separate pieces.

 

Actually, the tip of the Wolfpack "arrow" on the nosecone should just touch the where the tan part of the nosecone starts.  Unfortunately, many of the decal sets for VF-1 don't allow for adjustment of the length of the front part of the fuselage stripe. Don't know if that was the case with the GWH set. In reality, the front section of the stripe, from the number to the tip, is fairly consistent from airframe to airframe. It is the section from the number to the stars and bars that varies in length to accommodate the different sizes of different numbers. I know its a minor issue to some, but I have been a stickler on such details which have delayed me finishing my Tamiya 1/48 VF-1 Tomcat. None of the decals available are sized exactly right. :dontknow:

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3 hours ago, Paul Boyer said:

I just realized that the first 101 with the black canopy trim (perhaps the ONLY one with it) also had its nose cone painted gray over white, not white with the cream forward portion. It also appears to have the early cut-back gun muzzle with the longer blast panel. I've stripped the decals from my recent Academy model in preparation for refinishing it as an early VF-1 as it appeared in 1975 over the evacuation of Vietnam. 

To my knowledge the only Tomcat's that had the cut back (short) muzzles were the initial test and production (block 65 and below) airframes and by 1974 all have been retrofitted with the long gun panels.

 

During weapon separation testing it was discovered under certain conditions while firing the gun, the gun gas would cause compressor stalls in the port engine. The solution was the Gun Gas Diverter (commonly known as the Hair Dryer), the diverter was installed on all airframes sent to the squadrons prior to the squadron taking delivery (except VF-124 and VX-9) of the aircraft. There is one picture of a VF-1 F-14A with the short gun panels but that is one of the per-production airframes painted up in VF-1 markings for a photo shot. All of the birds VF-1 and VF-2 had when they started work ups in 1974 had the long gun panels.

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I wonder if the "101" with the black canopy rails and no "USS ENTERPRISE" applied was that one for the photo shoot. If you scroll up through this thread, there are two shots (one linked) of both sides of that ship and it has (appears to me) the short muzzle and long blast panel. What do you think?

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1 hour ago, Paul Boyer said:

I wonder if the "101" with the black canopy rails and no "USS ENTERPRISE" applied was that one for the photo shoot. If you scroll up through this thread, there are two shots (one linked) of both sides of that ship and it has (appears to me) the short muzzle and long blast panel. What do you think?

No it wasn't.

 

Looks like I was wrong, at least one short gun F-14 was sent to VF-1 in June 1973. It looks to be the first Tomcat VF-1 got and to my knowledge it is the only Block 65 VF-1 had (they did the work ups and 74/75 cruise with Block 70's).

 

If you want to do the first Tomcat VF-1 (1973 time frame with the black canopy rail) then you will need to covert it to a short gun Tomcat.

 

There's a pic of the Tomcat that was used for the photo shoot on page 93 in the AERO Tomcat book.

 

 

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One note, the black on the tip of the Tomcat's launch bar didn't appeared until Oct/Nov 1990, it would not be on aircraft before that time.

 

Some squadrons would paint the modex on the launch so they can tell who's aircraft was on the cat when viewing the PLAT below decks.

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Well I had to finish by today (I start work Monday again 😲)  Its by no means perfect, but I had to rush it.  Thanks for all your tips and comments, I wished I had the collective knowledge and wisdom before I started.  I am not going to be scraping decals off after I've MicroSOL all of them and applied Future gloss and Mr. Hobby semi-gloss Topcoat over them.  I weathered it very lightly, but its hard to see in the photos through the semi-gloss finish.  The most disappointing thing is you can hardly see any of the cockpit detailing AND when I uncovered the mask, there was some hazing on the inside surface of the canopy glass.  I've glued it shut a long time ago (I always make my models with the canopy open but the RIO coaming on the GWH kit was just too narrow, so I thought I'd close it for this model - little did I know it was going to be a problem - I even used liquid cement instead of just white canopy glue), I wonder if I should risk it and pry it apart (I'm sure to damage the finish around the fuselage and worst crack the canopy in doing so) to clean the interior - but I hate the hazing - I was so careful to not use any crazy glues in the construction at all.  It must of been some other paint off-gassing.  Hopefully I will gnaw away at the ordinance/fuel tanks over the next few weekends to finish her up - she's so lank/skinny without any missiles.  I do love how this kit has all the spoilers, slats and flaps open with all the proper alignment, but it does take away from a very sleek bird, I think I have to do one where the wings are swept back some day.

 

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All this hidden away...ACtC-3dybrwTs09Mqik5Hk2ycnjRnexSmrzFE29Z

 

I'm sure I didn't use any crazy glue at all - it must of been something else that off-gassed! 🤬

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Boy can you see the difference a few decades make, the beginning of 4th gen fighter and the end - even the colours scream 70s.  Well F-14, F-18 and my C3P0 & R2D2 represents this Covid Pandemic break for me.  Lets hope 2021 is a better year for all of us!

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Thanks everyone for all the help - its greatly appreciated (even though I'm too chicken-sh#t to attempt the corrections).  I will ask here, next time before I start my FineMolds VF-84 (hopefully before the next Pandemic break 😫).  I'll try to update this when I finish all the missiles and fuel tanks and decide on what to do with the canopy.

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