Hi there!
I wanted to know your opinions about these two kits in 1/48 scale. I have a pair of both and from what I've seen the Academy is very good compared to the "king" Hasegawa. The Academy costs 35 EUROS and the Hasegawa 64 EUROS here in GREECE. The thing is that the Academy can be constracted without any problems, has two great pilots(identical to Hasegawa's first releases!), a decent cockpit, 6 PHOENIX , 4 Sparrows, 2 sidewinders plus decals for each weapon! The HASEGAWA is a paint in the ass to assemble , no weapons(nothing!) but gives you a lot of alternatives(slats,flaps,landing gear, aresting hook). My opinion is that with some quality time the Academy can be pretty good, accurate and the most imporant thing that can save you a lot of money!

Hi there,
I have the Hasegawa F-14 tomcat and I thought it was a awsome kit. Go with the Hasegawa kit. Oh, by the way I have a set of Verlinden's F-14 enjection seats that I would sell you if you would like? How about $10.00+ shipping?

The options on the Hasagawa offset having to chase down their weapons sets to arm it up. With the exception of the Super-Tomcat, our Hornets can chew a Tomcat a third tailpipe in close, But I have to admit that a Turkey knelt down on the catapult with everything hanging out about to take a cat stroke is an impressive sight.

You are correct about the immediate problems Hasegawa has - no weapons and a high price. The weapons problem can be solved three ways:
- buy a Hasegawa weapons set
- use your spares box
- swap/buy/obtain spares of someone else.

Both the Academy and Hasegawa kits apparently come with some fits problems, but not large ones nor many. The Academy (due to it's lower number of parts and less detail) has better fit.

Not sure what kit you are looking at, but the Hasegawa F-14D apparently comes with:
- the cockpit stuff to make it a D (seats, consoles)
- GRU-7A's
- A/B consoles
- four different chin pods: plain ECM, IRST, TCS, and dual TCS/IRST.
- external tanks
- optional Phoenix pallets for the glove pylons
- a TARPS pod
- crew figures with optional heads for visors up or down

Here is an excellent four part article by David Aungst buliding the Hasegawa F-14 with Black Box cockpit:

Part One. The Black Box Cockpit Close Up
Part Two. Painting the Black Box Cockpit for Effect
Part Three. Tomcat Construction
Part Four. Painting an NSAWC Tomcat

Other reviews out there are:
1/48 Hasegawa F-14B (Upgrade)
1/48 Hasegawa F-14A+ converted to F-14B Jolly Rogers
Hasegawa's 1/48 FLIRCat
1/48 Hasegawa F-14A (Part 1)
1/48 Hasegawa F-14A (Part 2)
1/48 Hasegawa F-14A Tomcat
1/48 Hasegawa Grumman F-14A Tomcat
1/48 Hasegawa F-14A Tomcat

I cannot find anything about the Academy F-14 specifically, but everything that I have found (go to the RMS archives and run a search for some comments) states that the Academy kit is not that far behind the Hasegawa, and is well worth it. A bit sparse in the cockpit, but there are a couple of avenues you can follow to fix that if you want (the True Details set fits with slight modifications).

Either way, The Tomcat Alley may be of help.

Cheers,
Linz

Man, I just got to say great job to Linz. That was a well thought out informative post. I will have to remember where this is if I ever decide to build an F-14. Keep up the good work and thanks for taking the time to do what you did.

My pleasure Andrew. I've been hitting the various modelling sites and RMS since late 1998, so have a fair bit of information and links built up that might as well be shared. I was just annoyed I couldn't track anything on the Academy F-14 down!

Cheers,
Linz

I've just finished with the Academy TOMCAT. I have to say a few things. First of all I must say that it doesn't worth it. I've been working for 3 months just trying to make it look accurate.

It has many missing panel lines.

Each and every part needs hours of sanding and filling in order to remove awful mold lines and cyrcles.

The fitting in the front fuselage is unbelievably wrong. There is a gap of 7mm between the two parts.
Although the kit looks great after hours of work, I must admit it wasn't fun doing it. I will post some photos soon. I'm on for a HASEGAWA kit now and I HOPE it isn't such a pain in the BUT!

I've built both of them, and I recommend the Academy kit very highly. The Hasegawa kit is great, and very detailed, but WHAT A PAIN in terms of construction and fit. While the kit is very well detailed, it almost seems as if no two parts were designed to fit together correctly.

OTOH, while the Academy does suffer from some fit problems, they can be avoided through a little pre-planning in construction. Personally, I think it's a much better value for the money, and it can be turned into a really nice model.

As I said, I've built both kits, and if there's anything specific I can help you out with, please feel free to drop me an e-mail. Here's a picture of my completed Academy Tomcat:

Hi Bax,
I have a few photos of a Tomcat that was in the Kalamazoo AirZoo. If you would like for me to send you these pictures, PM me with your email address and I'll be glad to send them to ya