Hasegawa 1/72 F-14D Tomcat Ace Combat Pumpkin Face Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

When I saw the announcement from Hasegawa for this unique color scheme, I realized that we've never seen their 1/72 F-14 Tomcat in the Cybermodeler labs before. Let's take a look:

This special release is molded in black styrene and presented on ten parts trees plus one tree of clear parts and one fret of photo-etched parts. As you would expect, this kit is scaled down from their 1/48 scale Tomcat kit which was (until recently) the best F-14 in 1/48th scale. From the looks of this kit, it is a safe bet that Hasegawa holds this distinction in 1/72 scale so far. Among the features and options in this kit:

• Good NACES ejection seats (need PE or decal seat belts/harnesses)
• Photo-etched side consoles in front and rear cockpits
• Positionable boarding ladder
• Positionable canopy
• Nice photo-etched details for use with open canopy
• GE engine compressor faces at end of intake ducts
• Detailed afterburner chambers
• Wings can be positioned fully swept or fully unswept
• If wings are posed fully unswept, leading slats and trailing edge flaps can be posed extended
• Positionable stabilators
• Positionable speed brakes
• Choice of normal or kneeling nose gear struts

The kit is provided unarmed with the intent that you'll purchase their weapons set(s). The kit does provide some external options:

• 1 x TARPS pod
• 2 x external fuel tanks
• Choice of AIM-7 or AIM-54 adaptors on wing glove pylons
• Choice of AIM 7 (recessed) or AIM-54 pallets under centerline
• Early AIM-9 rails for sides of wing glove pylons

No Bombcat options are included but can be pieced together from the weapons sets. The weapons charts show AIM-120 can be carried in place of the AIM-7 in all six positions (that should have happened in real life but is no-doubt completed in the Ace Combat universe).

The instructions show that the wing glove vanes are mounted closed inside the wing gloves. This is correct for the F-14B but any sign of the gloves seams should be filled in with Mr.Surfacer for the F-14D.

To replicate this special paint scheme, you'll have to paint the gray and orange on the kit per the instructions, then the remainder of the markings are rendered as decals as you can see in the image above. The instructions provide the appropriate gray and the mixture to create the orange from Gunze Sangyo acrylic paints.

This is definitely an eye-catching paint scheme that will turn a few heads at the contest table (as long as the wings are swept to create the full pumpkin face feature).

My sincere thanks to Hasegawa USA for this review sample!