Finished Tamiya F-14 Tomcat, a VF-201 bird!

Now thats realnice. And you will have to excuse my ignorance, but i am guessing from the patch this is a Texas based unit.

Bish

Now thats realnice. And you will have to excuse my ignorance, but i am guessing from the patch this is a Texas based unit.

 

Yep! VF-201 Hunters and VF-202 Superheats were the 2 Texas based F-14 reserve squadrons. VF-202 was decomissioned after only about 2 years, with planes and assets being handed over to VF-201. About the only 2 squadrons modeled less than VF-201 in the F-14 community have to be VF-202 and VF-191 Satan's Kittens. 

Got it, thanks for the info. Always nice to see the less covered subjects and units given there place.

Oh My, that's a beautiful bird. Your build looks to be virtually flawless from the pics. Good luck at the show, you should do well or the judges are blind.

That's definitely a winner.

Excellent build!

Mike

Beautifully done, I love it!

Toshi

Beautiful job, sir. Mine's about 80% complete and I'll be doing the Jolly Rogers, thank you very much! :) However, I do have those VF-201 markings in the decal stash, so I guess that's justification for buying another Tammy Tomcat in addition to the other two I already bought?

Yeah, I thought so, too.

By the way, where did you get the patch? I'd love to add that one to my collection.

Straycat1911

Beautiful job, sir. Mine's about 80% complete and I'll be doing the Jolly Rogers, thank you very much! :) However, I do have those VF-201 markings in the decal stash, so I guess that's justification for buying another Tammy Tomcat in addition to the other two I already bought?

Yeah, I thought so, too.

By the way, where did you get the patch? I'd love to add that one to my collection.

 

Got it from a great eBayer, he has some great patches and even a few decals! 

http://www.ebay.com/usr/s3vikman?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2754

Nice job!

-BD-

mobiusone

 

Straycat1911

Beautiful job, sir. Mine's about 80% complete and I'll be doing the Jolly Rogers, thank you very much! :) However, I do have those VF-201 markings in the decal stash, so I guess that's justification for buying another Tammy Tomcat in addition to the other two I already bought?

Yeah, I thought so, too.

By the way, where did you get the patch? I'd love to add that one to my collection.

 

 

 

 

 

Got it from a great eBayer, he has some great patches and even a few decals! 

 

http://www.ebay.com/usr/s3vikman?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2754

 

Excellent, thanks!

A month and a half!!?!! Man, I wish. Very pretty. =]

bvallot

A month and a half!!?!! Man, I wish. Very pretty. =]

 

Thats a long detailed build than my normal! Thanks all for all your kind words. I'm packing her up to take to the Lake Charles show, I hope she does well. 

Good luck at the contest! That is a beautiful model.

Very nicely done, but it looks like you missed painting the starboard side walkway!

David from PA

Very nicely done, but it looks like you missed painting the starboard side walkway!

 

Well guys, out of only 4 other aircraft in her class, she didn't even place. I'm quite very bummed about that.  But I already have a second kit and know what to update. 

And David, actually from all the research i can find (Detail and scale Tomcat Colors, Tomcat Alley, etc) these reserve birds in overall gull gray only had the wing walk on only one side! I'm not sure why, but everything pointed as that being correct. 

And maybe thats why it didn't do so well. I tried to do everything as exactly as the BuNo appeared in all the books i have, so it wasn't heavily weathered, it didn't have ordinance (reserve squadrons rairly did on the ground) and decals/markings were missing or duplicated. All per my references. And it is just really hard to convey the story of this exact aircraft when your not there when the judges are looking. This has been a real bummer for sure. 

Mobius,

Sorry that you did not get an award since that really is a very nice build (most likely better than anything I could do). Couldn't you show the judges your reference material to prove that it was painted/marked correctly? Or don't they allow you to do that? As an old "Tomcat Tweeker" I assumed that all of them had both walkways non-skidded as a safety precaution but my assumption might be wrong, and it could very well be that you didn't place because your Tomcat was not what the judges expected. If the show rules don't allow you to prove your concept through reference materials the rules should be changed.