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Boris Grgić
38 articles

1/48 Hasegawa F-14A Tomcat

March 21, 2022 · in Aviation · · 10 · 1.6K

It's big, it doesn't fit into my display case. It's another US airplane. It's another dull, boring grey model. It's well aged... But it's ...you can't have a model collection without Tomcat!

Few years back a bought an open unassembled kit of 's Tomcat. I hesitated for a long time to start building it and this winter it finally came up to my schedule. It was a though one. Back in my childhood I assembled one Italeri's Tomcat in 1/48 and one Academy's in 1/72 scale. I never had a chance to wrestle with Hasegawa's 1/48. My used kit missed some parts, other parts were deformed or bent, and complicated model itself asked for a lot of filling and sanding. Wheel bays and air intakes took a lot of nerves, but it came to look like a decent airplane in the end.
I intended to put different marking but when I put old decals into the water they just disintegrated. So I managed to get new decal sheet from friend's Tamiya kit, together with his Phoenixes and Sparrows (my Hasegawa came without weapons).

In the end, after three months of production, this old cat did it's first landing (as shown in the pictures:).

Reader reactions:
11  Awesome

12 additional images. Click to enlarge.


10 responses

  1. Gorgeous Tomcat, Boris!

  2. Nice work on this, Thomas. That’s not the easiest kit in the world to get across the finish line.

  3. Very nice result on this Tomcat, Boris @grgast

  4. Excellent work on a very difficult kit. It's always a fight to build the Hase Tomcat.

  5. "I feel the need - the need for speed...", gotta love a Tomcat ,fantastic work on this Boris.

  6. I really like your realistic weathering of this "dirty bird."

  7. Nice! Looking for the 3 wire!

  8. A very nice Tomcat, well done! I like seeing such a kit on full display. Great pose and mounting, and even better paint work. Liked for sure.

  9. Well done Boris! ?

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