1/48 Revell/Monogram F-14D

backdated to the first F-14B Bombcat “The Thief of Baghdad”

by Justin Davenport

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The F-14 Tomcat has long been the US Navy’s premier air defense/air superiority fighter.  When it was introduced in the early 1970’s its main mission was to defend USN carrier fleets and task forces as well as friendly airspace from Soviet bombers and fighters.  The Tomcat incorporated –at the time- the world’s most advanced radar and missile combination, the powerful AWG-9 radar and the long-range “fire and forget” Phoenix missile, which could destroy targets up to 100 miles away.  The Phoenix had the ability to home in on its target without the Tomcat flying toward the target to “paint” it, which was a capability much appreciated and needed.  

As the years wore on, the F-14A served the Navy well, but problems with the P&W TF-41 engine were apparent from the very beginning and got to the point where the Navy and Grumman decided to build a new version with different engines.  The F-14B was fitted with GE F110 engines, which offered a big improvement in performance and reliability.  At the same time, the A-6 Intruder and A-7 Corsair were nearing the end of their service lives, so new attack aircraft would be needed.  The A-12 Avenger strike aircraft, which was supposed to be a stealth fighter like the F-117, was suffering from delays and cost overruns and would ultimately be canceled.  The Navy turned to the Tomcat as a possible near-term strike aircraft.  In theory, the Tomcat should have been capable of these missions; it was a long-range, swing-wing aircraft with two crewmembers, like the F-111 and the Tornado.  When I was younger and was reading about the Tomcat, I actually wondered why the Navy had never used it as a strike aircraft.  Little did I know that would change within a few years.  I first read about the F-14 being tested as a strike platform in Aviation Week.  But it was not until I visited ARC that I learned about the “Thief of Baghdad”.  The “Thief” was the last F-14B built and the first Tomcat used as a “Bombcat”.  The full story of the “Thief” is told in the “Stories” section on this site by “Chunx”, an active-duty USN radar intercept officer (RIO).  Today, the F-14D serves as a multi-role fighter flying strike and combat air patrol missions over Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

When I got to ARC I fell in love with the site.  When Twobobs came out with the ARC “Sandbox Alleycats” decal sheet I decided to buy one just because I enjoyed the site.  Little did I know that I would get deeply involved in a Tomcat superdetailing project, one that would last from the heat of June to the snows of November.  At the time I had an Italeri F-14A Tomcat that I’d bought in San Diego a couple of years back (because it had VF-84 markings-I like the Jolly Roger markings) and I figured, oh good, I’ll just use these decals on that, maybe a desert colored ‘Cat would look nice.  But when I saw the decals they looked so magnificent and inspiring that I figured I’d do my best to make a really special model with them.  Then I asked around and found out the differences between the Tomcat models.  I also found out that the “Thief of Baghdad” had a lot more in common with the D model than the A model.  I thought about buying the Hasegawa kit and even had an offer or two but I wasn’t quite up to paying that much all in one fell swoop and also had heard bad things about the Hasegawa kit’s fit.  But the thing that deterred me was not bad fit – I could deal with that – but the price tag. 

TWO KITS ARE BETTER THAN ONE 

For 30 bucks I was able to buy two R-M F-14D Super Tomcat kits.  I was very glad I did-at the time.  I messed up a few parts and was able to use other parts as backups – including the lower fuselage.  I also used one kit’s canopy (covered with tape) to mask off the cockpit area during priming and painting.  

I also ended up buying a Black Box cockpit, Verlinden GRU-7 seats, an Airwaves PE set, Eduard canopy masks, and an Aires wheel well set (thank you Uncle Rick!).  So where do I start?  Well I will start with the cockpit.  That was the first thing I worked on. 

My First Resin Cockpit

Before last year I had never used resin in any model.  I was first introduced to resin replacement parts when I built a 1/72nd scale R-M Space Shuttle with fuel tank and boosters.  Glenn Johnson of Real Space Models makes resin space kits and detail parts, and I ordered some for 

the shuttle.  I had great difficulty gluing them on and cutting the parts off their blocks because I knew absolutely NOTHING about resin.  I got the job done with some help but only when I got to ARC was when I learned that I had to use CA glue for resin parts.  In time I graduated to using resin ejection seats, and later, the Black Box resin cockpit with Verlinden GRU-7 seats. 

When I saw the cockpit I was amazed at how detailed this was.  At the same time I was also even more determined to 

get it right.  I started off simply enough, by airbrushing the cockpit MM Acryl flat gull gray.  I used MM Acryl Aircraft Interior Black for the consoles and soon got the consoles looking right (to my eyes).  I drybrushed flat white to accent the raised detail, and used red to paint certain buttons and warning markings where appropriate.  I got to work on the seats and panels, and soon had the seats brushed with aircraft interior black.  I had intended to use the Black Box seats, but I had a hard time finding one of them and I thought I’d lost it.  So I bought some Verlinden GRU-7 seats, and I am very glad I did.  The Verlinden seat belts were easier to recognize and work with, and the ejection seat handles were done with copper wire, which to me looks better than the BB kit’s molded rings.  (Thanks Brian M.!) 

Once I painted the seats in their proper colors, I tried a Tool n’ Tips article to do the instrument panels, with mixed results.  I tried to paint the instrument panel scale black acrylic, then a dark gull gray enamel, then use a cotton swab with thinner over the raised detail.  It worked somewhat but not fully, I ended up being very careful with a small camel hair brush and doing lots of touch up to get the instrument panels approximately right.  I used gull gray for the overall panel, and aircraft interior black for the dials…I also used some clear parts cement to make them look more like glass dials.  I also used yellow zinc chromate on some computer screens and brushed over them with Tamiya clear green (on one screen I just did Tamiya clear green over interior black and it looked different but I was not unhappy with the look).  I experimented with a wash of very thin interior black or Tamiya smoke (I forget which) to weather the cockpit floor a bit.  I also used a mixed blend of paint to get a purple color, which I brushed on the cockpit coaming.  Unfortunately, that did not last (more on that later).  Finally, I finished the seats by brushing the cushions olive drab and the seat belts medium gray, then used red Dymo labels to make the prominent red warning placards on the headrest sides (and pressed inward to get a little white out).  I glued the aforementioned copper wire handles and painted them, then I sealed the whole deal up with Dullcote.  At this point I was very pleased with my first resin cockpit and looked forward to putting it in the Tomcat.  The heat of August was now upon us and I thought that I could get the thing done in time for the Gathering in September.

Now, The Hard Part 

Little did I know what I was in for.  For starters, when I test fit the finished BB cockpit into the Monogram top fuselage, it simply would NOT fit.  The Monogram kit had molded in cockpit coaming and that needed to be cut.  I did a hack up job on the first kit, so I bought a second kit and was very happy that I made better cuts with it.  At this point I also turned to the process of scribing the panel lines.  Again, on the first fuselage, I made a hash of the job, using a dull scriber tool.  I got a Bare Metal Foil scriber and that worked much better on the first and second fuselages.  But as I had done a better job cutting out the cockpit coaming on the second fuselage, I decided to use that as the Thief’s fuselage.  I finally managed to scribe most of the fuselage halves as well as the wings and horizontal stabilizers, and finally some detail on the vertical tails.  I was pleased with myself when I found some more raised detail on the sides between the wings and stabilizers.  However, it was hard to reach, and I decided that what I’d done was good enough.  I also had to use putty and sandpaper to fix some errant scratches that I made with the tool.  Finally, I managed to glue the BB cockpit into the R-M top half without too much trouble.  I put some putty around the back of the cockpit to seal up an unsightly gap and painted it over, and I thought that I wouldn’t have too much trouble with the rest of the kit, if only I could figure out what to do with the nose wheel well.  The R-M cockpit floor and wheel well are molded in, and so I could NOT use it with the Black Box cockpit – I had to do long, laborious sanding and cutting of the BB cockpit’s bottom to even contemplate trying to build the R-M nose wheel well, but I had a feeling it would turn into hash.  At this point I wondered why I didn’t get a Hasegawa kit.  But I found out about Aires’ wheel well set and I thought that would be the answer to my problems.  So I ordered it from Uncle Rick in Canada (GREAT SERVICE!) and got it in the mail.  I shot gloss white into the nose wheel well, and used the small camel-hair brush to paint silver bands and other details….I used a wash of greatly thinned interior black and I was ready to go.  

Blood, Sweat and Tears 

At this point, I glued the nose well into the R-M bottom fuselage.  Before I did, I had to cut out the thin aft portion of the well and that took some doing, with a newly-acquired X-acto knife.  This knife also had a razor saw blade which came in very handy when cutting out the resin parts.  But I would need LOTS more than this X-Acto knife to get the two fuselage halves to fit after putting in the resin nose wheel well.    

I had to cut out the long thin part of the wheel well to get it to fit with the main part of the well.  That was the first problem.  I did a test fit of the two fuselage halves.  They were NOT even close to fitting.  Ouch.  I couldn’t glue the well in yet.  I started a laborious attempt to sand the cockpit floor down while at the same time sanding and cutting the nose well to the bare minimum height that would work.  I ended up cutting just a bit too much and had to use plasticard to fill in gaps on the top wall.  But that was still not enough.  So I sanded and cut some more from the BB cockpit floor until I was nearly to the cockpit floor and the seats.  After what seemed like a thousand test fits stretching out over a week and beyond, I glued the wheel well in….and I was ready to glue the fuselage halves in after the well dried.  I got the wings together and glued them in the nearly full swept position (based on the pic of the “Thief” on the ground…besides I like the Tomcat’s wings swept a lot better than straight).  But then more problems struck.  I got the back half glued correctly….but the nose section wouldn’t glue

  together well.  There ended up being almost no gap on the right side, but a very unsightly gap on the left side, and I had to use Evergreen sheet styrene to glue some panels to cover that gap.  Puttying and sanding, and more sanding, and then rescribing on the sheet styrene, finally got the left side of the Tomcat’s nose looking acceptable.  Then I found a big, ugly “step” near the point where the cockpit and intakes converge….lots of puttying and sanding finally got it down to the point where it wasn’t too noticeable.  

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I also glued on the Phoenix pylons on the bottom of the fuselage, and the bomb racks on the center portion of the Phoenix pylons (where there’s a small boxed area), and later ended up cutting the aft pylons off because I only had 2 bomb racks (thanks to Charlie Arsenault for the racks!) and they were glued on the forward pylons.   I glued the tail fins onto the bird and that went well, and I dug out the Testors F-14A chin pod and glued that on.  Finally, I dipped the canopy and windshield into a bowl of Future mixed with a couple of drops of MM Acryl Gold and was happy with it.

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At this point, I was finally ready to prime and paint the bird.  I used the second kit’s canopy and windshield and masked it and taped it onto the plane to cover the BB cockpit, while painting the frames on the first canopy and windshield.  I sprayed coat after coat of gray primer and sanded and sanded some more and applied some putty until I finally was pleased enough with the look to start airbrushing the Thief’s colors.   

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Paint Experiments 

I looked at the Thief of Baghdad’s paint scheme on the Twobobs instruction sheet and I wondered how I would do the base sand color as well as the other two colors.  At first I figured I’d use Tamiya buff color, but then I looked at it and didn’t like it at third glance.  So I decided to take the plunge and buy Humbrol colors, because the Twobobs sheet had a Humbrol mix listed for that color.  I ended up using a Pace salsa jar to mix eight tins of the marked Humbrol colors until I got the proper mix.  I then brushed the sand color onto the frames of the canopy as a test.  I was happy with how the paint laid down and brushed, so it was on to airbrushing the Tomcat.  But first I airbrushed light ghost gray onto the craft, and had to get several coats before I was satisfied.  

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I then sprayed some dark ghost gray to cover an area between the nose tip and the air intakes – the dark ghost gray strip was above the light ghost gray and below the sand/brown colors.  Once I was satisfied, I cut out some paper masks using Fiskars Paper Edgers I got in the scrapbook section of Roberts Crafts in Orem (they are a surprisingly great store chain for local modelers).  I used blue tack to affix the paper masks on the sides of the bird, then I sprayed the Humbrol sand color onto the Tomcat.  At first, I tried to use the double-action airbrush, but it didn’t cover a large area well, so I used the single action airbrush and was satisfied after only a couple of coats.   

The Tomcat finally began to look more like the Thief of Baghdad and less like a sorry lump of plastic sitting next to the decal sheet.  At this point I began building subassemblies, like the afterburners and the glove pylons, as well as spray painting the landing gears, doors, and other parts.  I also used Tamiya clear green diluted with Tamiya thinner to tint the front windshield.  As the time for the Gathering (in late September) was rapidly approaching, I bought Hasegawa weapons sets and an Airwaves PE set (that was a bargain at 8 bucks) and began to “push” to get the bird ready.  But I had an unexpectedly hard time figuring what to use for the two brown colors and I ended up using Earth Red for most of the brown areas and Leather lightened with white for a couple of areas.  I spent the better part of an entire day masking the splintered areas, and initially I had good success spraying the earth red and leather onto their respective areas.  However. I had to do some touchups and with the touchups I didn’t mask the plane enough and ended up getting overspray on some sand areas.  It got to the point where I had to do repeated masking and respraying, and the problem was finally solved when I masked lots more of the plane than the immediate area I was doing.  However, there was one area, when I ran out of Tamiya tape, I used Pactra tape on (the right intake) and the Pactra tape let me down and allowed some bleed of leather onto the sand.  So I ended up scratching the extra leather areas and brushing sand onto the area.  I also used a pencil eraser to erase some overspray on some areas (thank you Danny Deters!) I also had to do some touchup on the boundary between the sand/brown colors and the grays, with a bottle of MM Acryl Dark Ghost Gray – using drybrushing the ghost gray onto the boundary to soften the edges a little.  Finally I was satisfied with the entire camouflage finish, but the Gathering had long passed.  About four days before the Gathering, as I looked out the window and saw rain, I realized I wasn’t going to have the Tomcat ready in time, and I relaxed.  I took the JSF to the Gathering instead.  But after the Gathering was over looking at the Tomcat made me want to finish it.  And when I finally got the camouflage finish fully ready after my brother’s wedding, I was ready to do the final push just in time for the first snows of winter. 

The Final Push

There had been some overspray on the cockpit coaming, and I no longer had my purple mix, so I mixed medium green and zinc chromate and painted that on, and it looked acceptable.  Once that was done, I painted the earth red on the canopy frames in the areas that weren’t sand colored, and I painted the Airwaves PE set interior black, with the mirrors being Aluminum with black borders.  I used tweezers and a small amount of 20 second CA to get the mirrors onto the canopy, and I also got the two canopy side panels glued on all right without fogging as well (Future is GREAT for canopies, and that’s what I use it for – that and sealing in masking tape on areas where I want a sharp line).  Now I was ready to put on the decals, so I sprayed several gloss coats onto the bird, then put the decals on.  Most of them went on great without any trouble at all.  One exception was the left black “checkmark” decal in the shape of the lower ventral fin.  Fortunately, I got that straightened out – the decal split and I had to guide the two parts together carefully.  I got on all the decals except for the crewman’s name and the lower “false canopy”, and I sprayed on dullcote coats until I was happy.  

I built up the landing gear and started work on the armament, and drybrushed interior black on the main wheel wells to weather them a bit.  I sprayed the afterburners Metalizer stainless steel and dipped them in my Tamiya Smoke bottle for weathering, and ended up liking the look.  I painted the aft portion near the burner cans gunmetal, then glued on the burners themselves.  For the area near the gun port I used steel and had to mask and brush the area twice as the first time the paint peeled off (an unusual reaction to painting too soon on a freshly glossed surface?).  I realized I had to paint the area before I could put the “Thief of Baghdad” decal on the nose section, but only after I’d already put the gloss coat on!  That’s one mistake I won’t make in the future.  But the steel area turned out OK after additional drying.  Most of the slime light decals worked great but the wingtip slime light decals wouldn’t go on for me at all even if I used Microset.  So I painted the slime lights on the wingtips doped linen (thanks Darren Roberts!) and I like how they look.  I painted the lights aluminum then Tamiya clear red or clear green over the aluminum– I didn’t get the glove vane lights because I wasn’t up to masking them and wasn’t clear where they are.  But I got the other lights just fine. I also ended up painting the TV lens on the chin pod aluminum, and covering it with clear parts cement. 

I glued the landing gear on one night.  I had to cut off the round tab on the top of nose gear to get it to fit in the Aires well.  The two main gear struts (also from the kit) were tough to get into the kit main wheel wells – I couldn’t get them perfectly straight no matter what I tried.  I guess the struts on the Tomcat are meant to be slightly angled?  I hope so, because there’s an angle to them!!  And when I saw my Tomcat sitting on its gear for the first time it looked to me like it was slightly squatting on its tail end but I guess that’s normal for that bird?  Ah well, there wasn’t anything I could do about it, and I’d put so much work into it that I did NOT want to ruin anything or start all over.  Finally, I lost not one but TWO nose gear lights and ended up having to use a light from a Hasegawa weapons set….even though I have a pair of Tamiya tweezers I still have a tough time with small parts. 

I then put on the gear doors – the main gear doors next to the glove pylons are from the kit, but the other two doors that enclose the main gear wells come from the Aires set.  The main nose gear doors also come from Aires, but I had to cut out the two aft nose gear doors from the R-M kit sidewalls as I’d lost those Aires doors.  The small thin aft door on the nose wheel well – I don’t remember where I got it from.  In many cases the Aires doors looked better than the kit doors because they were thinner and more detailed.  However, the two main gear doors from the kit fit better in that particular area; the Aires doors were just too small.  Before I glued the doors on I brushed semi gloss white because the white finish sprayed months earlier was too light, I could see the yellowish resin in some spots.  I also used a red paint pen (from Staples) to paint the door edges. 

The false canopy was a challenge, because the nose gear is down on my plane.  I ended up painting the aft nose wheel doors gunship gray, as well as the section aft of the wheel well.  I used decals for only the main nose gear doors, and even then aft of the false frames I overpainted the area gunship gray to make it consistent.  I put on the crewman’s name (Hoyenga) on the left main gear door as per the instructions and then brushed some flat coat onto the door to seal the decals in.  Finally, I glued the nose gear doors in and that completed the basic construction of the plane, except for gluing the canopy on and rebuilding a couple of ejection seat handles out of wire (the two on the front were lost during the various masking and painting jobs).  Within short order that was done. 

The Armament   

I have several Hasegawa weapons sets in 1/72nd and 1/48th scales, and these sets came in very handy in this project, even the 1/72nd set!  (I’ll explain in just a moment).  I used the kit Sidewinders and painted them with Polly Scale Blue 23 (USQM 3-1) – at least that’s what it says on the bottle – I didn’t catch the FS number or actual name of the color from the hobby shop, I just asked the guy what to use, he produced a bottle, and I paid for it.  I used scale black and aluminum for the nose section and fins, and white for the tail fins with aluminum guidance vanes.  On the left pylon, I cut out the Sparrow molded into the pylon, because I saw pictures of an ACMI pod and an inert practice Sidewinder on the left side of the actual “Thief” (in Chunx’ article).  I didn’t know how I was going to get the ACMI pod onto the bottom of the pylon but I figured I’d find a way.  I pondered what to do with the right pylon, but thought about what they’d carry on it if they only carried one ACMI pod (I thought aircraft only carried one of them).

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So I figured I’d do the other pylon with an inert Sparrow on it.  (Later, Brian M. advised me that often it’s common for both pylons to have Sidewinder rails on the side and on the bottom, in place of Sparrow rails.  Thanks for the info!  I used a spare Sidewinder rail and lots of putty to get the job done.  I like the look of the bird with an ACMI pod on one side and the Sparrow on the other anyway).  For the Sparrow, I used light ghost gray with semi-gloss white for the nose section, scale black for the fins,  and a blue stripe in the front and an earth red stripe in the back (closest I had to brown).  Tamiya tape came through for the stripe masking with no problems.  Besides the air to air missiles and ACMI pod, I also used two Mk. 83’s from the Hasegawa weapons set, and painted them in the same blue color as the Sidewinders, with the aft fins being light ghost gray and the fuses aluminum.  The ACMI pod is International Orange with aluminum stripe, scale black nose cone, and a gold and aluminum tip.    

Finally, I mentioned that even the 1/72nd scale Hasegawa weapons set came in handy for this 1/48th bird.  Here’s why: during the masking process, part of the nose pitot tube broke off of the Tomcat.  The larger part of the tube was still there, but I needed to replace the smaller “needle”.  That’s a very common problem in building models, I understand.  I finally cut off the top part of the nose tip and glued in the needle from a 1/72nd ACMI pod, and that looks GREAT.  A vast improvement over the kit pitot tube.    

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Conclusions 

Would I do this again?  Maybe yes, but NOT with a R-M 1/48th scale Super Tomcat kit.  If I want to do another Thief of Baghdad it will be in 1/72nd scale, or a 1/48th scale Hasegawa kit.  But that won’t happen anytime soon.  I’ve got a NSAWC splinter Tomcat decal sheet and I might just use it on the Testors F-14A kit I have, the one I was originally going to do the Thief of Baghdad decals on before I learned more about the Tomcat.  I badly need a sanity build, in fact I built a Mig-21 and a Caravelle during this time and the Mig will also be featured on ARC.  Building and finishing the Mig helped me get inspired for the final push on the “Thief”.  But now that the Thief is sitting proudly on my shelf, next to the TV, I am going to do some “sanity builds” without PE or resin!  I learned LOTS from my first big foray into advanced aircraft modeling.  Will it be enough to make a really special bird for the Nationals in Oklahoma City?  I think so!  I haven’t determined what that bird will be yet, but with a couple of months off for the holidays, I will be inspired to start around the new year.  Many thanks to Steve Bamford, Danny Deters, Brian Marbrey, Darren Roberts, Matthias Rabiller, Charlie Arsenault, Jason Van Lint, and LOTS of others on ARC for their support and encouragement. 

Happy Modeling!  

Justin

Photos and text © by Justin Davenport