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F14A Tomcat - PART THREE

Tomcat Kit Lineage
The following are brief descriptions of a spattering of the earliest releases that Hasegawa made on the F-14 Tomcat. This list is by no means complete. I am only showing the roots of where the current Hasegawa releases on the Tomcat are based. There have been numerous special release kits with special decals for various aircraft, too numerous to list them all. All these special release kits are just re-boxings of one of the kits I list below. In some cases, like with the "Bombcat" releases, the special release kits also include a few extra parts, but the base kits remain unchanged.

	This is the original box art of the original Hasegawa F-14 Tomcat kit, an F-14A (stock #07018 / P018). The kit was released in the early to middle 1980s. It featured a slew of in-the-box options (which I list later in this posting) and five different Pacific Fleet marked aircraft in the decals (VF-21 and VF-154 in two versions, each, and a VF-111 CAG).
	This is the box art of the second Hasegawa F-14 Tomcat kit, another F-14A (stock #07019 / P019). This release was only a few weeks after the first release and contained an identical kit to the first one. Only the decals were different. This time the kit featured four different Atlantic Fleet marked aircraft in the decals (VF-31, VF-74, and VF-84 in two versions).
	This is the box art of the third Hasegawa F-14 Tomcat kit, still another F-14A (stock #07020 / P020). This release was only a few months after the first two. This time the plastic components were changed to represent an early block aircraft. The new components replaced pieces from the earlier kit releases so that only an early block aircraft can be built with this kit. To the current date, this is the only Tomcat release with the components to build an early block aircraft. The decals included both Atlantic and Pacific Fleet markings (VF-1 CAG, VF-14, and VF-32 CAG).
	The F-14A+/B Tomcat was first released as a special release kit (stock #51508 / SP008) with updated components to build an accurate F-14A+/B Tomcat. The big change was the replacement of the P&W TF30 engine exhausts with the GE F110 engine exhausts. There were a few other minor changes to the kit to complete the F-14A+/B. The decals provided three low-vis aircraft (VX-4, VF-74, and VF-101). The box art I have included here is actually the second release of an F-14A+/B Tomcat as a standard stock kit (stock #07023 / P023). It has the same plastic as the earlier special release kit, only with new decals for three different aircraft (VF-74, VF-143, and VF-211 CAG).
	As the F-14D was just hitting Fleet service, this kit was released. This is a special release kit (stock #51544 / SP044) with updated components to build an accurate F-14D Tomcat. Decals were provided for two aircraft (VX-4 and VF-124). The kit was based on the earlier F-14A+/B Tomcat kit releases. All the pieces needed to make the F-14D were just added to the F-14A+/B kit without removing the counterpart pieces. Knowing which pieces to mix and match allows the construction of accurate F-14A+/B or F-14D models from this kit. To date, no standard release kit of the F-14D has ever been made. There have been multiple special release kits, though, providing a variety of decals options.