Marcel Chmura
The kit is looking very nice though from what I have seen on YouTube. Very nice molding. Having the 1/48 kit myself but tempted to go for this one either.

Patrick Hagelstein
Oh! It surely does and I'm looking forward to building it. The only thing that differentiates this box from the 1988 boxing is the small 50 years Academy label in the left bottom corner. People might end up with the old kit instead of the new one.

Pierre
I was really excited with this kit until I saw that youtube vid, a lot of the panel lines look wavy due to the nearby riveting... Hopefully he got an early shot and that'll be fixed with production kits. Should still be worth it given the price point.

Martin von Schreckenstein
Could you link the yt video Pierre? couldn't find it myself. Thanks

Treehugger
The general box art here is the same as the kit in 1:48 scale (Academy 12253), the one with the weird front canopy glass. How they could screw that up in our time and age I have no idea (the one in 1:48 scale).

Looking at the review video, my impression is that the front canopy glass surface looks like it should have had more curvature to it (the kit in 1:72 scale).

Patrick Hagelstein
@ Pierre, I saw those rivets too. It looked like the rivets were pushed in after the panel lines were drawn. Could be that it was a pre-production kit as ScaleModelAircraft (Dusan Lekic) often builds Academy kits that only hit the shops months later. I am however, confident this kit will be nice. The later Academy kits are well buildable and very detailed for an 'easy kit'! This might not be the FineMolds or G.W.H. standard in terms of finesse but I think this kit will build into a very nice OOB Tomcat without fiddling and without a ton of unused options. Don't get me wrong, for a highly detailed very specific BuNo I'll go for either the FineMolds or G.W.H. kit but for a nice detailed 'just sit on my shelf in VF-??? markings Tomcat' I'll definitely look forward to this Academy kit.

Pierre
Well, I guess we'll wait and see, I concur it could become the go-to quickbuild kit. I'm glad I didn't give in and pre-order either of the new Tomcats right now, makes me feel very wise and reasonable 😛

Martin von Schreckenstein
I am just sad this is the only 72 tomcat with the windshield handled like this.

Patrick Hagelstein
Perhaps one of the most awaited academies announced this year. The 1/72 F-14A is finally available. MMZ will be able to provide you with a preview of the final version. However, it is still a trial injection, so the details of the product may change slightly.

Originally designed for the Academy 1/72 MCP lineup, it was modified to the general version and the final product is a traditional plastic model, not MCP or Snaptite. However, there are some parts of the parts that indicate that this product started with MCP.

The above is the Google translation for the MMZ preview. Apparently the pictures on there are of testshots. (one can actually see some grime and stuff on the plastic)

Federico Burchianti
The kit has been released today; it has been announced om the Academy site.

Patrick Hagelstein
Yeah! I saw it too!

Patrick Hagelstein
I've seen pictures of a VF-51 decal option somewhere but it doesn't show in Academy's announcement.

Federico Burchianti
Is it confirmed that the sprues contain pieces for the later versions? I would like to build it as a F-14B.

Patrick Hagelstein
A through D, all in there! 👍

Federico Burchianti
That's perfect! Any idea where we can buy it online (best price/release date)? Rarely I have bought an Academy kit newly released and still not imported in EU.

Patrick Hagelstein
I sent an email to my favorite model shop in Aachen if they will receive it. Haven't heard back yet.

Federico Burchianti
The Korean ebay shops have started to sell it. 🙂