Hawkeye Decal's 1/72 VF-21 F-14A+ Tomcat

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

The F-14 Tomcat has worn a large number of color schemes over the nearly 30 years it has flown for the Navy, which means that there is plenty of opportunity for new colorful decals.  This release from Hawkeye Decals features the CAG bird from VF-21 during the Gulf War in 1990 and is probably one of the more colorful planes from that era.  Instead of the normal camouflage of ghost grays, this one is finished in overall gull gray.  Likewise the low-viz stars and bars are replaced with larger red, white and blue examples.  This takes care of the basics, and the rest of the colors come from VF-21, being black and yellow.  The canopy section is outlined in black stretching from the radome all the way back to almost midpoint of the plane.  The vertical tails and the ventral fins are painted in black with yellow accents, with CAG colors adorning the fin tip.

The decals themselves are very thin and appear to be printed on a laser printer.  The instructions state that for best results you should paint the areas the decals go on gloss white first, which implies that the inks are translucent rather than opaque.  For the most part this shouldn't be a problem, as most of the decals are either black or on areas that will be easy to paint white.  Being printed on a laser printer also means that these decals are quite thin, so you'll want to be very careful to apply these.

With the excellent Hasegawa kit available this is a great sheet to add some variety to your Tomcat collection.  Hawkeye Decals can be purchased from Sandle Hobbies.  Check out their site for the broad listing of decals from this company.