Upon opening the box, you will find six poly bags of sprue that allow you to build two models. The contents also include two sets of finely-etched metal parts with excellent detail. Inside the bags with the clear parts is a couple of genuine patches for two squadrons from the Jolly Rogers Fighter Wing. There is also an extensive instruction book included along with a very finely printed decal sheet that is fully in register, very comprehensive and very colorful:
This closeup of one of the photo-etch sheets shows the intricacy and detail of these parts. One of the models I'm building will include as much of this as possible while the second model will not. This way a more balanced review can hopefully show how these models look when they are built with the whole detail sets or not.
Here is the shot of the first page of the instruction sheet. I won't be showing every page as this is almost a paperback book, but you can see how well printed this is with clear lines and diagrams. However, one should read very closely as certain symbols and indicators can get lost in the overall diagram. Hasegawa tried to show both ways to build this model side by side; so to speak. The options for the detailed and basic builds with or without the extra photo-etch detail are offered on each step, making each step almost look more complicated than it is supposed to be. Sometimes these steps can become confusing due to their similarity and lack of comprehensive English translations so careful perusal is called for on each step of assembly:
Upon closer inspection of the sprues I was a bit surprised that a newer kit like this included some flash as seen here:
and here:
as well as here:
You can see however that the flash is thin and easily removed. This flash also does not detract from the excellent detailed molding of the overall parts.
Moving on to the assembly, I started the two F-14's cockpits as usual.
The kit offers a choice of photo-etch parts and paint; or the more basic paint and decals option for the cockpit assemblies. For the purposes of this review, I am doing one cockpit in each option.
To start out with, I assembled the four bang seats for both of these aircraft. The seats come in five parts each. The ejection seat handles are photo etch. I added them to the seats in the photo etch cockpit but left them off in the paint and decal cockpit. I will add them later to the second cockpit when the paint and decals are completed so as not to risk breaking them off and losing them in the process:
One thing to watch out for when attaching the side parts to the seat cushion: ejector pin marks that stick out. I had to remove a few on these seat parts to make things fit well:
This first cockpit was done with the photo-etch. As you can see, the photo-etch parts were not cut to shape to match the indentations and cuts on the sides of the basic cockpit tub, as well as on the back of the cockpit. I'm expecting fit issues in the future when it is time to close this particular cockpit up:
The second cockpit assembly went together easier:
Here is a shot showing the two of them side by side to compare how they look:
The instrument panels for the photo etch cockpit do not have photo etch parts for them. Instead, you are given color call-outs to paint in the details. I started to paint these instrument panels for this cockpit; the basic paint was laid down first:
The second set of instrument panels don't need paint as the decals for them already have the base color on each part. I didn't do the decals on them yet so they will be shown in a subsequent update.
While I had the paint out, I added the basic paint to both cockpit tubs to start them off. I painted the cockpit panels on the sides of the photo-etch cockpit so as to dry-brush some white or grey over them later to bring out the details. Here they are with the start of the painting on them:
That is as far as I got on these two Tomcats.
To sum up, my initial impressions are of well-molded kits that still surprisingly exhibit a bit of easily removed flash. I was pleased to see that the flash was thin and easily removable and that it does not affect the rest of the detail on the parts. I was also thrilled at the inclusion of the squadron patches and very impressed with the quality of the photo-etch parts. I was a bit disappointed however, that something as obvious as the cut of the canopy tub was not reflected in the photo-etch parts, given Hasegawa's usual attention to such details. I am pleased that so far the parts seem to fit very well without any issues to date. Further progress will reveal whether this continues, as I'm certain some fit issues will occur from the photo-etch on the one cockpit tub.
Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome. Stay tuned, further updates are forthcoming.
