F-14A VF-1 1:48, Italeri
Air intake ramps, lowered, showing the bypass duct and the actuator ram...sort of
The beginning of the reworked boat tail. It's missing some refinement and the aft light cluster. The countermeasure dispensers are from Furball.
One of the exhaust nozzles, redone in open position with aluminum sheet.
Drop tanks getting some care.
Design for the early gun gas purge vent arrangement in Adobe Fusion 360.
Design for a vent on the nose.
The previous parts fresh off the printer.
Not exactly fine fitting aftermarket here...
Getting there.
Cockpit getting done. It has some small mods but it was reasonably good from the box.
More cockpit..
Crew members in their seats
Crew members in their seats
Design in Fusion 360 for the ECS vents in the lower fuselage. A mesh will get sandwiched between the frame and the fan box.
And off the printer
Close up of the ECS vent parts, next to the original vents as they came with the kit.
Some aseembly required.
And roughly installed in their location.
Panel lines came out too stark. It is a shame that it was evident to me only after it was done....
The 3d printed air data sensors and grills...
Inaccurate, or at least weird, loadout... Sparrows and Sidewinders are live, but the Phoenixes are inert (blue bands). One day I'll get around to repaint them, I promise 🙂
Also shown are the 3d printed ECS fans, hidden under their meshes. Worth it? I don't think so but it was fun.
Also shown are the 3d printed ECS fans, hidden under their meshes. Worth it? I don't think so but it was fun.
I modified the nozzles with tin foil to show them fully open. Also cleaned the tail hook of spurious bumps and modified the beaver tail to the early one with the RWR fairings removed.
3d printed grills for the early bu/nos are shown here.
Early bu/nos did not wear the sideslip indicator string. I guess that came as a mitigation after the row of issues/accidents related to engine flameouts caused by excessive sideslip that the TF30 powered Tomcats had.
Finished air intake ramps. These are supposed to be in the position they were when flying supersonic.
Glove vanes were operational in the early days...later on these were wired shut. I suppose they found the aircraft handled well enough without them and didn't compensate the cost of having them functional.
评论
16 23 October 2023, 21:30
Andrés Fernández LucenaThank you! It is indeed and an adventure and somewhat masochistic, for sure. As you see the kit was pretty banged up and I could have easily bought any other of the Tomcat kits out there which are leaps and bounds above this one... Nevertheless I enjoy improving mediocre kits more than anything else. And I couldn't really bear to throw in the bin the kit which I had bought as a kid with the little money I had back then. So we're in for the challenge!
25 October 2023, 21:43
AlbertoWow, that is some serious scratch work, well done! The cockpit looks great already
28 November 2023, 19:08
