Hasegawa has a new decal variant for it`s well known Tomcat kit, the F-14B “VF-103 Jolly Rogers Last Flight”.

They should have named the kit "Jolly Rogers Last Tomcat Cruise", because the scheme was not only for a last flight ceremony.

There is not much to say about the kit, it is well known and I think it is still the best 72scale Tomcat kit around. It has some minor shortcomings, so the fitment of the middle fuselage section and the nose, where some sanding is required, but it builds into a nice Tomcat.

Painting was done with Gunze colors and Weathering with artist oil paint and pastel chalk.

When painting and finishing was done I found that Hasegawa had made a mistake in the painting instructions.

While the painting is correct for the “100” CAG-bird, it is not correct for the “103”, which differs a little in the grey/grey area under the cockpit. On the box photo it is clearly visible but I only looked into the instructions…

So I decided to start again and repaint this area. 

Building the Tomcat was fun except the painting error and to display the aircraft I took a wooden base made from a local joiner. The airfield is painted on via airbrush and the airfield parts are from a Verlinden set.

I hope, you like it. 

Thomas

Any comments – just email me to: Thomas.neuss@t-online.de