Treehugger Re. photo 3. what is the correct placement of the fuel tanks? I would like to know.

On my Academy 1:48 kit for the F-14A, the two holes are off center, more inwards. Probably wrong but I haven't yet figured out what is correct. My kit seem to have this set of panel lines like you have, and your holes are centered on those panel lines, but those are wrong you say?

Pierre Well I figure the correct alignment for the pylons is somewhere outboard near those pairs of plugged holes along with the two caps visible behind them. That's where Academy placed them on their new mold 1/72 tomcat.
More importantly than the pylon position, what I consider to be visually right is for the outer side of the tank to be aligned flush with the outer side of the intake pontoon. But that's only a personal guess based on observation . So if you move the pylon, you have to make sure the pylon angle remains right and the tank doesn't stick out.
The position of those tanks is somewhat of a trick question in itself because they look different in each picture, and they possibly sway while in flight.
Hope this helps

Treehugger I think I saw in a photo, clearly that the fuel tank is horizontal with the ground, but I will have to check it again. I guess I was wrong about thinking the fuel tanks are centered.

Cuajete Following.

Treehugger Actually, I looked at another photo now and now it looks the tanks are aligned with the tilted inake shapes, heh I have to investigate that issue onwards.

Pierre These show what I tried to explain regarding the pylon being offset to the exterior: F-14 Intake Correction Set (Zactomodels Z32049, 1:32) and the tank being aligned with the outer wall of the intake anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-airintake-07.htm
Regarding the stance from a side perspective, the tanks are probably aligned with the intake indeed, so facing slightly upwards [img1].

Jos Jansen Iam in Pierre!

Maciej Bellos Following too!

Daniel Klink Ooh another Thug... Great so far..seems youre a bit P-47 addicted don't you?

Pierre This is the current fad yeah . Just a couple quick builds to try out new things and get some boxes out of the stash. As usual, they're taking much longer than anticipated...

Guy Rump Good start, following

Daniel Klink following! ah and i see the good old A-470 still in use by someone..

Pierre Heh yeah, it is much hated for understandable reasons but it works! Well, most of the time anyway.
I just wish it were possible to buy spare parts. Also, what people say about quality declining is true, it's probably not a good buy right now.

Daniel Klink Sure also got one of the last A4709 chrome... but you are right..the inner parts are quite vulnerable and the overall quality is not like in earlier days.
But the 4709 set in the wooden Box was a good offer 10 years ago

Pierre Yeah, I luckily scored mine off ebay a couple years ago. As a matter of fact I broke it right after the beginning of lockdown, and Testors was nice enough to hook me up with a newer one and the quality difference is crazy.
The new one was probably a serviced one which didn't work because a different part was damaged, so in the end I had to rebuild it using parts from both guns. Would have been much simpler with a spare parts service.

Alex Nice choice, I did the same plane (but Revell and SkyModels decals)!

Pierre Alex, no pictures? That decal sheet sounds like something I might want to get, so many choices!

Alex Not yet, it's on my bucket list for next week... Decal sheet is excellent, but be aware, only stencils and roundels for 1-2 aircraft, regarding of your choice.

Pierre Hi!A Tomcat GB is always a good idea! I figure I can enter a cat or maybe two once I finish that Aggressor F-16 from the 2019 GB .

Pierre Thansk to all of you! This scheme is quickly proving to be as time consuming as I feared it would be

@Patrick Hagelstein: those Crossdelta plates look really great besides the thickness which is showing a lot on the ram panel around the nose, and will work fine on any paintjob that doesn't require masking over them. Vinyl is probably a better solution for the curvy ones.
@Jos Jansen: this is Mr Surfacer 1500, it's just that super polished PE that seems to be non-cooperative unless extreme care is taken.

Bryn Crandell Looking good so far. Looking at the Gray and trying to tell if it's too light or not. To me it looks about right. Granted your lighting will have an effect on it. Looking at the full scale photo, the gray isn't that dark. Go with what looks right.

Patrick Hagelstein My two cents.... Looking at the cover picture, there's more contrast between the white and the grey. If asked specifically, I would go for a darker grey. Might not be the answer one likes but learning from you, it sometimes pays off to go for the more difficult approach to yield the best results.

Sergej I I checked the AKI RC248 paint which is FS36251 ... it's darker... it actually matches the one on the photo.

Maciej Bellos FS36251 is quite dark, quite darker than FS36270. However after some time it gets quite lighter, check out the Hellenic Air Force F-16s, especially the Block 30 and 50. So I would go with FS36270, standard F-16 colour, and quite dark when looking at say the Polish Air Force F-16s.

Daniel My 2 cents: I think the gray is correct but your white turned a bit gray through the black base...so since thats hard to correct I would as well choose a darker gray to get the contrast back

Pierre Thanks for all the input guys. I think I'll be able to fix that contrast issue and obtain a darker grey tone with a filter/wash. Or at least I try to convince myself so that I don't have to mask over the same spots again

Patrick Hagelstein

Pierre Thank you both

Bryn Crandell Finished eagles look great.

Piotr Sarniński-Górecki Looks soo cool Congrats !

Neal Parkes Tres jolie ce F-15E! Bien exécuté.

Pierre Thanks guys and merci Neal. Another asymmetrical load

Neal Parkes Ouais j'aime bien, avec les SDB ça fait bizarre. J'ai aussi le F-15E avec un GBU-31 sur le pylône centrale, ça fait genre gros coup de marteau si besoin!

Slavo Hazucha Beautiful work (on both Eagles) - superb (&still realistic) variety in the grey finish and lovely details

The Nozzles are a dream - the KA model stuff seems to really be worth the coin, especially on complex assemblies like here... Almost 2x Aires price, but man, the detail & finesse... And you made it truly shine

Daniel Top notch pierre, looks very realistic, cool choice of loadout and just stunning used-look finish

Pierre Thank you Lukasz, Roland, Daniel and Mirko, glad you like the result

JOHN THOMAS Nice work

Neuling Top camouflage paintwork!

Patrick Hagelstein I keep reading that you were struggling with this build, but why did you post pictures of a totally different splendid build then???

Juergen Klinglhuber Your project turned out good - stunning!

Clifford Keesler Excellent job.

Pierre Thank you John, Neuling, Patrick, Juergen and Clifford!

Neuling, thankfully the only painting I did was the light blue, I can't imagine having to mask all those pixels!

Patrick, I'm still having microsol induced nightmares, but that was worth it .

Patrick Hagelstein Hang in there!

Maciej Bellos Following!

Pierre Thank you Patrick and Slavo, I'm glad you both like the final result.

Patrick, I agree with your feelings about the kit. I still love the Hasegawa one for nostalgic reasons and because I prefer the finer engraving, but I already ordered another Academy cat. I used sprue goo for those fuselage pinmarks, but I think I'll go with epoxy putty next time, should be easier and cleaner. In any case, I hope you get to finish yours soon

Patrick Hagelstein When I'm done working my emails from my home office later today, I'll take the long trip to my studio (4 meters) to start working on the Cat again. I used sprue goo too for both the landing gear ejection marks and the rear Sparrow well. The landing gear ones are easy to shave/sand flush, but the Sparrow one is difficult because of the convex shape. Maybe Mr. Surfacer would heave been the easier solution here.

Maciej Bellos Excellent result! Well done Pierre!

Pierre Thank you Maciej

Bryn Crandell How do we miss these. This Cat came out quite nicely. Well done!

Daniel great job pierre! they look happy together

Patrick Hagelstein At least they are allowed to be together.

Patrick Hagelstein Seriously, for humans, keep that distance!

Mark Looking Good.

Patrick Hagelstein Nice! I hope the IIIR isn't that long out too.

Ekki Following.

Pierre Thanks! Getting there, just the final tidbits and it'll be done.

Martin von Schreckenstein looking awesome. gotta step my tomcat game up

Spanjaard great job!!!

Pierre Thanks guys!

Ekki Brilliant job. Well done!

Ronan Magnifique, Pierre

Cuajete Very nice. Congrats!

Maciej Bellos Not missing a cat!

Holger Kranich Seems as we have a new Tomcat enthusiast among us! Welcome Pierre!

Pierre Hi! I somehow ended up with 10+ cats in the stash, so I need to plan ahead a bit

Holger Kranich You can never have too much Cats!

Daniel The Internet loves cats, so do we^^

Maciej Bellos Following it also!

Maciej Bellos Following!

Patrick Hagelstein In as well!!!

Michael Hickey Sweet!

Pierre Welcome! For now, just trying to figure out what to do with the pile of cats. This one will definitely get built first though.

Patrick Hagelstein In!!!