Furball Aero-Design/Detail & Scale 1/48 Colors and Markings of US Navy Tomcats Part Two Decal First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Furball Aero-Design continues its collaboration with Detail & Scale and this release covers the Grumman F-14 Tomcat where it left off in Part One. This set looks at the timeframe where the NACA gun gas door started appearing in the fleet along with the (then) new F-14B. This set provides markings for eight distinctive examples designed for the 1/48th scale Hasegawa kit.

The eight subjects in this set include:

• F-14A, 159863, VF-14, AJ/201, USS John F Kennedy, 1996, Skipper
• F-14A, 161869, VF-11, AE/100, USS Forrestal, 1991, CAG
• F-14A, 160923, VF-31, AE/201, USS Forrestal, 1990, Skipper
• F-14A, 160408, VF-84, AJ/201, NAS Oceana, 1993, Skipper
• F-14A, 160395, VF-33, AB/204, USS America, 1992
• F-14B, 163219, VF-103, AA/201, USS Saratoga, 1993, Skipper
• F-14B, 163225, VF-101, AD/115, NAS Oceana, 1993
• F-14B, 161862, VF-101, AD/101, NAS Oceana, 1998, Skipper

In addition to the extensive marking options in this set, there are sufficient airframe stencils for at least two kits. The sheets are printed by Cartograf and the printing is very well done. What's more, none of these decals require the modeler to stack multiple layers of markings atop one another to recreate artwork. This trend by some other decal companies of producing multiple-layer decals is unfortunate as it puts the burden on you to do the work of what should have been done by the decal maker.

My sincere thanks to Furball Aero-Design for this review sample!