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F14A Tomcat - PART FOUR

Two Bobs NSAWC Decal Sheet
At the time I started this model, no after-market company made decals for this aircraft. After visiting NAS Fallon in person and creating my own decals for the model, I found the notice on the TwoBobs Decals web site stating that they were going to produce decals for this exact aircraft. I got excited and sent TwoBobs an e-mail asking if they would be interested in my research on the aircraft. They were very interested. To make a long story short, this model is built using the new TwoBobs decals which I received from them as compensation for all my help on the decals.

I do not want to sound like a TwoBobs commercial, here, but the decal sheet is very complete. I made sure of that while I was helping them. It provides markings for the aircraft as it was seen in May of 1999. There were changes in the camouflage by April of 2000 and still more by September of 2000 that interupted the original design of the camouflage. I have noted the variations in my camouflage diagrams above.

A few issues with the decals exist, but are not that noticable on the completed model.

• The "NSAWC" and small "20" on the tails are in black. They should be gray to match the lightning bolts. Likewise, the square and the writing for the fire extinguisher entry on the engine nacelle side are also black, but should be gray. After talking to TwoBobs, I learned these were image glitches with the software they used to create the decal images. These markings were gray in the original images, but when they translated the images to send to them to the printer, the software revised the colors of these images. Fortunately, none of the rest of the markings on the sheet were effected.
   
• The small "20" on the tails should be at least 50% larger and bolder.
   
• The "20" on the nose should be about 15% larger and bolder.
   
• The "Danger Arresting Hook" markings on the sides of the beaver tail should be at least 100% to 150% larger. I actually printed replacements for these markings to use on my model using clear decal film and my ALPS printer.
   
• The fire extinguisher writing should be about 50% smaller.
   
• The lightning bolts are not sloped enough on the decal sheet. When the decals are applied, following the natural slope of the tails, the angle of the top of the lightning bolt is at the wrong slant. I fixed this by trimming the top of the decals on the model before the decals dried.
   
• Also, the Topgun badges end up not being oriented properly. This is best seen when applying the yellow cross-hair decals. The vertical orientation of the cross-hairs hits the MiG and surrounding writing differently on the left side from the right side.
   
• All the provided slime lights are identical in size. While this is true of the real lights on the real Tomcat, the Hasegawa scribing of the tail top lights is different in size to the scribing on nose sides. The decals are a bit taller and a lot smaller in width than the scribing on the tail tops. The slime lights do match perfectly to the scribed lights on the sides of the nose, though. I did some judicious slicing to shorten the height of the lights for the tail tops. Then added some extra width to the lights by using some of the extra slime lights on the sheet.
   
• Lastly, the turbine warning stripe should be about 25% wider and shortened in length by about a quarter of an inch. I applied a second stripe along side of the first stripe to increase its width on the model. Then, I trimmed the stripes to the correct length before the decals dried.

I only noticed these things because I saw the aircraft in person and did a lot of research to create my own decals for the model (prior to learning that TwoBobs was doing it). On the completed model, none of these issues is of any great consequence. I applied the decals using Solv-a-set and had no troubles of any sort.