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F14A Tomcat - PART THREE

The next items on my list of cockpit improvements were the cockpit side walls. Hasegawa molds nothing into the inside of the fuselage halves to represent the assorted side wall details found in the Tomcat. I was preparing to scratch build these items when Black Box released their F-14A Tomcat cockpit for the Hasegawa kit. The Black Box set fixes all the issues I outline above by replacing the entire cockpit. It also provides side wall details for the cockpits. I simply discarded the modified kit pieces and counted myself lucky for not investing too much time on the cockpit issues.

For a full review of the Black Box F-14 Tomcat cockpit and its integration into the Hasegawa Tomcat kit, see my other reviews: Tomcat Cockpit and Tomcat Cockpit Painting.

Following the completion of the cockpit, I assembled the forward fuselage. In the original release kits, before the moldings were reworked, the kit cockpit does not fit inside fuselage sides real well. I needed to cut off the sides of the cockpit tub to gain clearance so the fuselage would fit together. In the kits with reworked moldings, the cockpit fits inside the fuselage without any issue. When I swapped to using Black Box cockpit, I did not have to worry any more about it.

After dealing with the cockpit and the forward fuselage, the rear fuselage is a snap. In one evening, I cut, cleaned, trimmed, and assembled the entire rear fuselage (without the engine intakes). A little care was needed to get the "beaver tail" to fit smoothly without too much of a joint line, but this was workable without using filler.

The main wheel well interior pieces proved to be a bit of a puzzle. After tinkering with them for almost an hour, I finally relised that they are intentionally too tall. The top edge of them comes to a shape beveled point. When joining the upper and lower fuselage halves, this point is crushed over the raised details on the inside of the upper fuselage. This is an odd choice by Hasegawa to get a tight fit, but it works. I just needed to accept this was the way it was intended to work.