Before starting the project, I did lots of homework to compare the
kit and upgrades, pictures revealed lots of kit details did not
match real F-14s. I had to do plenty of modifications to make the
model as accurate as possible. I made the cockpit as the first
step and used Aries highly detailed resin cockpit set. I would also
challenge myself in adding lights in cockpit, monitors and
instruments. The rear part of the cockpit was the key point of
modification because the actual aircraft was an updated
Bombcat. Some push buttons, control rods and monitor screens
were different from what’s provided by Aires. I sanded these
details off and added correct ones with styrene stock. Where
illumination was needed, I drilled fine holes and added small
pieces of coloured film. I redesigned the front and rear instrument
panels with plastic card to make enough space for the LEDs. I had
to experiment with different materials as backgrounds to ‘cast’ the
light evenly (simply white plastic card) and very thin clear accetate
for the screens.
With the cockpit complete it was onto the airframe with more
modifications to incorporate lighting. I made navigation lights
around the body and the strip light on the front landing gear with
LED. Navigation lights on the tcs heads and on the tip of wings
were made by optical fibers. Inside of the vertical fins did not have
enough space to work with and the optical fibres bent too much
and failed to light up. I had to solder connective wires together
and divided all the lights into four groups with different voltage by
using different resisters and colours. I added an IC control for the
tcs lights to make them ‘glint’ like the real ones. I did not want any
visible power source or switches on any surface of the model so I
used button batteries and hid them under the missile suspending
points. If you took these parts off, you would see the battery cells
and switches underneath. Lighting is not something often seen on
scale models, and it does require a different set of skills b,ut the
results are certainly worth it.
Aftermarket parts from Eduard, Aires
and Master amongst others.This ex-’Bombcat’ required some modification
to the rear instruments.Plenty of trial and error resulted in realistic
screen lighting.The illuminated HUD
looks impressive!The Aires cockpit adds superb
detail and was improved further
with a few tweaks.