Fujimi Grumman F-14A Tomcat

That said, the pilot figures are some of the best...

Cheers,

Chris.

chris hall wrote:

That said, the pilot figures are some of the best...

 Chris are you joking? Sarcasm? Or is this really some of the best when it comes to 1/48? Sheeesh I hope not. In fact since I've opened the box I have growing disappointment, no modeled instrument panels (though this may be typical of 1/48 jets), some flashy parts (the plastic flash kind not the "ooooh look at me" flashy kind, and really lame looking ejection seats.

 Maybe I need to go and buy a kit that isn't over a decade old.

Unfortunately as you have discovered, this is an old, old kit that wasn't so great when it was first released.

In 1/48, the Academy, Monogram/Revell, and Hasegawa F-14 kits are far superior.  The downside of the Hasegawa kits is that they are so darned expensive. 

I like the fact that the latest Revell F-14B & -D kits have significant updates with the weapons and cockpit details.

Mark 

Chris are you joking?

Sorry, I was referring to the 1/72 kit, where the flight crew have separate arms, heads, and bodies, and are very well-moulded indeed. In fact, the kit as a whole is excellent:

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Rev1/701-800/Rev739_F-14_Manca/rev739.htm

You get positionable slats and flaps, etched bits for the cockpit and (not so good news) vinyl tyres. You get a full weapons loadout. You even get separate engines which you can display on trollies!

The Fujimi 1/48 kit, OTOH, is another matter entirely. To describe it as mediocre would be erring on the side of kindness. If you want a decent 1/48 Tomcat, you've got to bite the bullet and buy the Hasegawa kit (not far short of £50 here in the UK at the moment). And remember that you'll also need their 1/48 Weapons Set B (that's another £11 or so) if you want anything to hang under the wings.

Cheers,

Chris.

EGADS! This kit is horrible. Run as far away from the box as possible.

Incredibly inaccurate, odd combo of raised and recessed lines, poor cockpit.

I would rather glue my fingers to my knees than build this kit again.

btp2k2 wrote:

I would rather glue my fingers to my knees than build this kit again.

HA! Well, I have a 1/32 F14A by Tamiya, how is this kit? It would be monster in size so I'm not going to build it now, but any comments on that kit?

Prepare yourself for a rescribing nightmare.

The Tamiya Tomcat is a good kit...well detailed and accurate...however, for some reason they chose to recess the panel lines on the forward fuselage while the rear (from the intakes back) is raised.

The Tamiya Tomcat is a good kit...

If you think that decal instrument panels are OK in a 1/32 kit costing in the region of £100....

chris hall wrote:

The Tamiya Tomcat is a good kit... If you think that decal instrument panels are OK in a 1/32 kit costing in the region of £100....

Well, that was the standard when it hit the market in the early 80's.

As far as the recessed/raised panel line issue goes, the supposed story is that Tamiya originally intended the kit to have all recessed panel lines, but having done the nose, the tooling costs were getting too high, so the rest of the aircraft received raised panel lines.

Well, that was the standard when it hit the market in the early 80's.

Not really. I have several Airfix 1/24 'Superkits' from the 1970s with moulded instrument panels and clear instruments. Back in the early 1970s, I also built Revell and Hasegawa kits in 1/32 with raised instrument panel detail. 1/48 Airfix kits from the early 1980s  have moulded instrument panel detail. Tamiya had a chance to do something about this in the early 2000s, when they re-released this kit with new weapons sprues, but chose not to.

Part raised, part recessed panel lines are the sort of things you expect from firms like Airfix and Heller, not for a firm like Tamiya with a reputation for quality to protect, and prices to match. The kit wasn't that good when it first came out, and is nowhere near the quality being produced in 1/32, often for much less money - check out RoG's recent output in this scale - today.

Cheers,

Chris.

True enough Chris.

Tamiya's Tomcat resembles a government project where the project was managed by committee and the actual work was conducted by several design teams with different areas of responsibility and each with their own separately managed budget.

Unfortunately it appears that some or all of the teams didn't receive some or all of their memos. So you have a nose with recessed panel lines, while the rest of the airframe has raised. You have a cockpit with decals for instrument panels, but the undercarriage has metal pins inside the struts and the wings are mounted in a  screw-together metal wing box.  

All rather strange....

chris hall wrote:

Well, that was the standard when it hit the market in the early 80's. Not really. I have several Airfix 1/24 'Superkits' from the 1970s with moulded instrument panels and clear instruments. Back in the early 1970s, I also built Revell and Hasegawa kits in 1/32 with raised instrument panel detail. 1/48 Airfix kits from the early 1980s  have moulded instrument panel detail. Tamiya had a chance to do something about this in the early 2000s, when they re-released this kit with new weapons sprues, but chose not to. Part raised, part recessed panel lines are the sort of things you expect from firms like Airfix and Heller, not for a firm like Tamiya with a reputation for quality to protect, and prices to match. The kit wasn't that good when it first came out, and is nowhere near the quality being produced in 1/32, often for much less money - check out RoG's recent output in this scale - today. Cheers, Chris.

The cockpit decals were the biggest disappointment with the Tamiya kit when it first came out.   If nothing else it led to the sales of a lot of Waldron (remember them?) cockpit sets.   

I always thought it was ironic that Revell came out with their 1/32 Tomcat shortly after the Tamiya kit with engraved panels and consoles in the cockpit, plus it had all engraved panel lines.  Although the landing gear and ejection seats were weak on detail versus the Tamiya kit, the Revell kit was only about 1/3 the price.  After the Monogram merger, Revell even scaled up the seats from the Mongram 1/48 Tomcat for the bigger kit, which I thought was a neat deal.  Too bad Tamiya never saw fit to re-tool their kit.

Mark

RedCorvette wrote:

chris hall wrote: Well, that was the standard when it hit the market in the early 80's. Not really. I have several Airfix 1/24 'Superkits' from the 1970s with moulded instrument panels and clear instruments. Back in the early 1970s, I also built Revell and Hasegawa kits in 1/32 with raised instrument panel detail. 1/48 Airfix kits from the early 1980s  have moulded instrument panel detail. Tamiya had a chance to do something about this in the early 2000s, when they re-released this kit with new weapons sprues, but chose not to. Part raised, part recessed panel lines are the sort of things you expect from firms like Airfix and Heller, not for a firm like Tamiya with a reputation for quality to protect, and prices to match. The kit wasn't that good when it first came out, and is nowhere near the quality being produced in 1/32, often for much less money - check out RoG's recent output in this scale - today. Cheers, Chris. The cockpit decals were the biggest disappointment with the Tamiya kit when it first came out.   If nothing else it led to the sales of a lot of Waldron (remember them?) cockpit sets.    I always thought it was ironic that Revell came out with their 1/32 Tomcat shortly after the Tamiya kit with engraved panels and consoles in the cockpit, plus it had all engraved panel lines.  Although the landing gear and ejection seats were weak on detail versus the Tamiya kit, the Revell kit was only about 1/3 the price.  After the Monogram merger, Revell even scaled up the seats from the Mongram 1/48 Tomcat for the bigger kit, which I thought was a neat deal.  Too bad Tamiya never saw fit to re-tool their kit. Mark

Thats why I refuse to buy the Tamiya 1/32 scale kits too darn expensive. But as for figures you could always use the Hasegawa 1/48 scale figure set.

I've got 7 of the big scale Revell Tomcats.....and I am barely up to what you would pay for 1 Tamiya 'Cat. I think the Revell kit builds up just fine....