F-14D Tomcat / Bombcat Cockpit Superset

Teknics

Reviewed by Darren Mottram

HyperScale is proudly sponsored by Meteor Productions

The Tamiya 1/32 scale F-14 kit has been around for quite a few years now and is a nice model which portrays the "A" Tomcat Nicely. Unfortunately Tamiya have not seen fit (yet) to update their model to depict the aircraft in it's later "B", "D" or "Bombcat" variations.

This set goes some way to addressing this shortfall by allowing the modeller to put a later version cockpit into their model (You could also use it to improve on the standard kit cockpit which is a little lacking in detail if you're not overly worried by accuracy).

Owing to the scale and size of the intended recipient, this is a large set which contains some very large pieces of resin, as well as a sheet of etched brass details, acetate instrument details and some small etched steel sheets for the seats.

The level of detail on the resin parts is very nice as you might expect and the moulding of the seats in pretty much one piece (without harnesses) is a testament to the mould designer's art. The two resin cockpit tubs are probably the largest pieces of resin that I have yet seen for an aircraft kit! The resin includes the parts for the two cockpit tubs, both instrument panels, instrument coamings, cockpit side walls, both seats, small seat details and canopy structural detail.

The etched brass sheet contains very nicely detailed parts for some of the instrument and graphic display faces, delicate cockpit details and quite a bit of material for canopy detail.

A sheet of photo acetate is included to depict the instrument and display faces.

Lastly, there are two small sheets of etched steel for buckles and details for the Ejection seats. Unfortunately I could find no reference to any of these components or their placement on the seats (or any mention of the seats at all actually) in the instructions so you will need to come up with your own reference for these.

The four pages of instructions, whilst having a "hand drawn" look to the illustrations, seem to cover all aspects of assembly and painting of the set quite well (except for the ejection seats as mentioned previously). In particular they point out the difficulty of accurately depicting the Tomcat cockpit owing to the fact that *almost* no two are alike. It is explained that many aircraft have different configurations depending on the upgrades and modifications carried out (even within the same squadron!). The manufacturers explain what they have used for reference under these circumstances and also provide directions on what components of the set to use depending on the configuration of the machine you may choose to model (from the information they had available to them anyway). A nice bit of "extra effort" I thought.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

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Unfortunately, a set of this size and detail doesn't come cheap and the cost may be a drawback for some. The other consideration which could be a dis-incentive is the fact that, to accurately use this set, you will need to convert the rest of the airframe to match the cockpit. This will either mean scratch building or another conversion or detail set (such as Teknics TK32011 set) for the outside of the kit as well which, after the purchase price of the original kit and this cockpit set, will make for a *very* expensive project indeed.

This is an impressive set that will result in a super detailed cockpit for the Tamiya 1/32 scale Tomcat for those who wish to depict a more recent, operational machine or even just to "pep up" the existing cockpit. I'd recommend this set for  most modellers, however, due to the size of this set (with quite a bit of resin removal and cutting required) and the lack of instructions for assembling and detailing the seats, some previous experience with multimedia sets might be handy. 

Thanks to Meteor Productions for the review sample.

Review and Images Copyright © 2001 by Darren Mottram
Page Created 06 October, 2001
Last updated 22 July, 2003

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