Out of curiosity has anyone built this kit? Mine is on the way but im worried about the cockpit. I have seen that the Tamiya kit has no detail in the cockpit but rather decals. Does anyone know if the Trumpeter kit is the same? If so where can I get a good detailed cockpit for it and maybe some pilot figs too?
Dre is building one of them at the moment, and the amount of extra-detail he puts in is simply stunning!
Here’s a link to it.
Cheers, Clemens
Reaper420- As Clemens said (thanks bud!), I’m working on one now and it is worth the price of admission.
The kit’s cockpit is usual Trumpeter style, meaning that major scratchbuilding or a resin replacement is a better option than the sparse details and decals. Aires makes an impressively awesome cockpit set that I’m using in mine.
Aires also does full resin wheel wells that have to be seen to be believed, it’s a shame to paint them gloss white, throw a wash in there and call them done. The Aires/Wheeliant resin tires/hubs are almost a must-buy for this kit as the detail on them is light-years ahead of Trumpeter’s parts.
Zactoman makes replacement intakes as well, but I’m not bothered by whatever inaccuracies are in the kit parts… that just depends on how accurate you would want.
As to the kit itself, I’m having a good time with mine with no major issues encountered (yet). The intake trunks have lots of sink-holes and 2 major seams that will require some hard work to fix, but that’s true of just about all jets. Fill the sink-holes and seams, pour some heavy white latex paint in there and call them done.
You might consider getting some extra weapons to sling under it as the kit comes with AIM-54’s, AIM-9’s and AIM-7’s, two tiny laser guided bombs and a LANTIRN pod. If you want JDAM’s or GBU-31’s then you’ll need a weapons set (Trumpeter makes these as well).
So far, this is pretty much all I can say about the kit and the resin that I’m using and I’ll give everything an A++ rating.
No problem mate! Someone has to promote your awesomeness, if you don’t do so yourself. [;)]
Lol.
Thanks Dre and Schatten. Your info and advice ate great appreciated. Happy modeling guys.
FYI Reaper- if you really like Trumpeter 1/32 stuff and don’t mind a long-ish wait to get the package, then try Hobby-Space.com for some stupid low prices… the shipping is steep but if you’re smart about the order you can still realize some substantial savings.
Thanks for the info Dre. I bought my 1/32 F14 off ebay for 149.14 with free shipping. Take about a month to get here but I dont mind. You think that was a decent price?
That’s roughly what you would have paid for it from that website+ shipping (and the shipping time is comparable as well)… so yeah, that seems OK by me.
Got this bounty in the main yesterday, looks like I’m ready to start my Tomcat. I got the wolkpack cockpit kit because Aires doesn’t make one for the Trumpeter f-14b.
Nice haul tates. Im thinking about getting some parts too just to add more detail but gotta scrape up the dough first. The F14 and airbrush/compressor combo I bought set me back a bit.
It’s almost getting to the point with me that I just sign my pay checks over to sprue brothers.
Tates, that haul looks familiar… you’re going to love those Wheeliant tires and hubs over the kit parts.
I was gonna do my tomcat build oob but your build inspired me dre
So… I guess i had better get back to working on mine…