1/72 Hasegawa F-14B Tomcat

Final Cruise

by Burt Gustafson

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For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos of my 1/72 scale Hasegawa F-14B Tomcat. The model depicts a U.S. Navy F-14B VF 103 "Jolly Rogers" aircraft sporting F-14 Final Cruise decals. The F-14 was the Navy's primary air superiority fighter and fleet defense interceptor from 1974 to 2006. It later performed precision strike missions once it was integrated with a LANTIRN pod. Now they are all gone.

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CONSTRUCTION

Construction of this kit was pretty straight forward and mostly out of the box except the LANTIRN pod, the two GBU-10 laser guided bombs and one air-to-air missile. Although the kit came with a LANTIRN pod, I chose to use a LANTIRN pod from the Hasegawa 1/72 scale Aircraft Weapons VII kit because it has the decals for the pod. The two GBU-10 laser guided bombs are from the 1/72 scale Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons VI kit. The two AIM 9 missiles are from the kit and the AIM 120 is from the spare parts stores. Overall, the parts fit for this kit is pretty good except for connecting the nose assembly to the rear fuselage. This required a bit of filling and sanding.

PAINTING

I airbrushed the model for a factory fresh paint job using Testors Model Master enamels (Light Ghost Gray, FS36375 and Semi Gloss Black). The paint scheme calls for Dark Ghost Gray for a portion of the top fuselage, but I chose to paint the entire model Light Ghost Gray, except where black was called for. For the wheel wells and doors, and the landing gear assemblies I used Floquil Reefer White. After the paint dried, I airbrushed a coat of Future wax to prepare for the decals, and then applied another coat of Future over the decals. For the final finish I airbrushed a mixture of Model Masters Semi Gloss and Flat Clear Laquer finish.

DECALS

For the model decals I used a combination of kit decals and decals from TwoBobs Jolly Rogers Final Cruise decal sheet (72-040). Decals from both the kit and TwoBobs were excellent. They were printed well, and easily placed on the model, and snuggled down nicely to the model.

Overall, the kit is of good quality, typical of Hasegawa kits, and a joy to build. I was pleased with the finished model.

Burt

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Photos and text © by Burt Gustafson