Tamiya F-14A Tomcat - Completed!

Marko
Excellent work.

Maciej Bellos
She's a beauty. Well done Michael!

Eelco Gregoire
Very nice! Do you also have a picture from the underside?

Murad ÖZER
that's a beautiful beautiful build Michael! <3

Soeren R.
Wonderful work!

Stephan Ryll
very nice result Michael 👍 👍 👍

Rv
Wow. Nice one !

Michael Phillips
Thanks Marko, Maciej, Eelco, Tim, Murad, Sören, Stephen, and Rv! I am happy with how this one turned out. I purposely tried to be considerably more restrained on my weathering since this is from about 1976 and was basically new and rather clean.

I did run into an issue I had not yet encountered on this build. I got some cracking in the future clearcoat at some point after application of the decals. At that point there was not much I could do. Luckily it is not noticeable unless you are right up on it, but this is definitely not a show entry for that reason.

Also, I might be wrong, but it sure seems to me like the Tamiya F-14 nose is a bit too pointy. I had seen it in pics and kinda blew it off, but next to my Hasegawa Tomcat the difference is pretty noticeable. I dunno, maybe the Hasegawa Tomcat nose is too fat, but looking at both the Hasegawa nose looks more correct and is more appealing visually.

But I will also add that this kit is by far the best fitting and best engineered kit I have ever built. It was a pure pleasure to build, and not one ounce of putty was used.

gorby
It looks stunningly good Michael – well done.

Christian Bruer
Bravo-Zulu 👍

Erik Leijdens
Another stunner Michael!!

Christian Ristits
Very well done, she is a beauty!

Patrick Hagelstein
Can the pointy nose be an optical illusion? Maybe because of the black radome and anti glare panel. Looking side on at the WIP pictures in black primer the nose looks just right.

Michael Phillips
Thanks Gorby, Christian, Erik, and Christian! Your kind words humble me.

Michael Phillips
Patrick, that could be. But I had my suspicions from the very first pics of built models from the Tamiya introduction. But surely the black radome has not helped to alleviate my concerns. I think I am overly conscious of it, just because I love the Tomcat so much. On any other plane I would never even notice. But it could also just be a figment of my own imagination. LOL

Gerald
Very Nice 👍

Marco Gallmann
Great! Well done Michael

Spanjaard
really nicely done, i will keep this as reference for the day i get my Tomcat(s) to the work bench.... thanks for sharing.

Michael Phillips
Thanks Gerald, Marco, and Spanjaard! I look forward to seeing you build this kit too Spanjaard! That will be a definite must follow! 🙂

Ulf Petersen
Awesome Tomcat, Michael!👍

Spanjaard
thanks Michael, really appreciated 🙂. for the time being i have two 1/72 that i want to do... the 1/48 will have to wait a bit unfortunatelly.

Michael Phillips
Thanks Ulf! Spanjaard, I will be keeping an eye out for your upcoming projects, no matter what they are.

Spanjaard
thanks a lot, I will be honoured by that 🙂
to be honest, i actually have a "unfinished business" with F-14 in 1/48 scale... or maybe i should say "overfinished"😛 . I did the Monogram kit decades ago, painted with brush and enamel Testors white .... I think I probably used enough paint on it to airbrush at least 3 or 4 kits 😛

Ulf Petersen
Thank you so much, Michael! That's an honour to me as well.
This is the project I currently work on.
EBFDN "A miserable pilgrimage" | Album by Bongolo67 (1:35)
There's an update coming soon.

Spanjaard
although i really love it, i have a question, and excuse my ignorance if the answer is obvious but..... why one of the exhaust is fully open and the other fully closed?

Arash Zakeri
Great tomcat

Maciej Bellos
Spanjaard, I think it has to do with the hydraulic pressure, or actually the lack of it. The engines do not shut down both at the same time. First the one and then the second. When the first shuts down there is still hydraulic pressure to close the exhaust. When the second engine shuts down, there goes the hydraulic pressure and the exhaust remains open. Something like that, or the other way around, there is no hydraulic pressure to open the second exhaust (remains closed), while there was hydraulic pressure to open the first exhaust.

Spanjaard
so it is common to see them like that, ok, thanks for a detailed answer 🙂

Michael Phillips
Thanks James and Arash! Spanjaard, Maciej nailed it. Here is a more technical explanation, from the M.A.T.S. website:

The TF30's afterburner nozzles are regulated open or closed individually by each engine's afterburner fuel control system. The afterburner fuel control pumps are individually operated using the hydraulic pressure produced by the combined and flight hydraulic systems. The port engine powers the combined hydrualic system and the starboard engine powers the flight hydraulic system.
The Tomcat has a "weight on wheels" switch and a "weight off wheels" switch. When weight is "on wheels" (on deck) the nozzles are commanded open to reduce thrust produced by the engines to keep from blowing over ground personnel. When the weight is "off wheels" (airborne) the nozzles will close any time when being in "basic engine" from idle to military power (highest thrust without selecting afterburner) and will open up as afterburner is staged. This feature gives added thrust at idle when being airborne. The switches are mechanically operated by the main landing gear scissors assemblies, but need electrical power to function. When electrical power is taken off the jet completely, the aircraft will default to the weight off wheels condition where the nozzles close so that if there happened to be a total electrical failure airborne you would still have the same amount of thrust at idle that you always do airborne.
When the engine is shut down, the starboard engine is always shut down first. The reason why is because there is a bidirectional pump that has to be checked to ensure that if the starboard engine is lost in flight, the flight side hydraulics will still operate. Once it is ensured that it is working the bidirectional pump will be secured and the flight side hydraulics will go to zero and the afterburner fuel control on that side will no longer be powered because of the lack of hydraulics. Since the weight on wheels switch is still receiving power from the left generator, the starboard nozzle will be trapped open. When the port engine is secured the left generator drops off-line at approximately 55%, however the combined side hydraulics will still operate at 3000 psi for a short period of time as the engine continues to wind down. When the port engine is secured (power off) the nozzle closes because of loss of electrical power and residual fuel pressure through the fuel control to the nozzle actuator.

Maciej Bellos
Now it's my time to say thanks. My answer is crude with respect to Michael's and I learned something new today.

Spanjaard
wooooow, that is not detail, that is professional level explanation! thanks Michael!

Murad ÖZER
That's even better than searching tru the natops - tons of info crammed into perfectly comprehensible bits, thank you indeed Michael.

gorby
You certainly know your stuff Micheal - well explained!

Doug
Very inspiring Michael, great job!