[WIP] F14A Tomcat

[Jeroen Ottens]

Hi,

After a few years of procrastinating, but pushed into action by the new technic Jet, I have decided to try to build my F14A Tomcat again, studless...

Here is a first shot:

The ambition in terms of functionality:

6 motorized functions (one motor with a manual switch gearbox):
- Landing gear
- Landing gear bay doors (2 for the front landing gear, 2x3 for the main landing gear)
- Canopy
- Swing wings
- Pneumatic pump
- Gatling gun

6 pneumatic functions:
- Arrester hook
- Brakeflaps (2 in the tail + 2 on the main wings)
- Canard wing
- Inlet deflector shields
- Leading flaps & trailing slats on the main wings
- Main landing gear lock (when landing gear is down)

The aircraft is controlled with differentially controlled wings at the back so that they act as tailerons and rudders on the vertical tail wings. The whole set can be operated manually with two gears at the bottom, one to control pitch and one to control roll. I hope to be able to connect the control surfaces to the joystick in the cockpit, but space is a little tighter in the version than in my old version (I try to build to scale this time, the previous version had a too high cockpit).

The front landing gear is suspended. When completely compressed the hook for the catapult on the aircraft carrier is deployed. The landing gear can also be steered with the roll control when it is deployed.

The main landing gear will swivel around it's own axis when it retracts. A 3D linkage system will guide it, just like the real thing. I don't think I will add suspension to it. With the weight of the plane the suspension will always be compressed, so it is a bit useless. I'd rather use the space to make a good connection for the pneumatic lock.

One thing I am not sure about whether or not I will be able to fit is the ejection seats. My previous studfull version did have ejection seats, but because the space is more limited I fear I will not be able to fit those in.

The biggest question I have now is which colour to build it in (that's why the surface elements are all darkblue at this moment, I can easily select that colour and change it to the final livery)...

The obvious colour choice would be LBG. Unfortunately there are hardly any panels available in LBG on BL and some panels don't even exist in that colour. For instance I expect to be using a lot of 11x3 curved panels with 10 pinholes, since the paneling will have to provide a lot of the rigidity of the structure. But these panels are only available in red, blue, yellow, black, dark blue medium azure and medium blue and not in LBG.
Black is a colour that will have all parts, but it will make the plane look very, erh..., black.
A white and red combo can maybe work, but will look quite stuntplane-ish I'm afraid.
All red maybe?
Thoughts are appreciated.

I'll keep you posted on the progress,

Leg godt

Jeroen

 

[JunkstyleGio]

I'm looking forward to the result.

 

[Lucio Switch]

Really interesting!! What about the blue like a Blue Angels livery?  (Even if they don't use the F14)

[legolijntje]

I wouldn't make it completely red, I've never seen a red jet and it just feels kinda 'meh'.
I googled the blue angels @Lucio Switch mentioned and that does indeed look quite nice!

Looking forward to what it'll be 

[falconluan]

wow! It's very promising. For the color, I vote for a white one with some red, or a medium blue one.

[Didumos69]

That is going to be massively interesting! Anxious to see what this is going to bring forward. I would combine all tints of blue with white.

Edited January 20, 2017 by Didumos69

[Leonardo da Bricki]

1 hour ago, Didumos69 said:

 I would combine all tints of blue with white.

+1 This looks like an excellent and ambitious project. Great start.

[MacKaiwer]

I just love all moc fighter jets and I'm looking forward to see end result, just make amazing one  For the all red colour scheme, here is near all red one that I found from internet:

Maybe something like that, without that ugly face symbol?

[2LegoOrNot2Lego...]

This is going to be huge!!! Nice... ;-)

[dr_spock]

I like.  It's one of my favorite jets from the 1970s.  Blue Angels' colours would be quite nice. 

 

[Kristof]

You are unstoppable! So many great projects at such pace.

[AFOLegofan66]

this looks amazing...looking forward for the next installment!!

[Jeroen Ottens]

Thanks everybody for the suggestions for the colour scheme. I had never heard of the blue angels, so that certainly looks like a contender colourscheme

For now I concentrate on getting the functions all inside. I have been able to fit an ejection seat mechanism in the cockpit space. Here is a short video showing it in action:

It only has one seat since I only have one of these new nicely curved panels. The whole mechanism is 4 studs high counting from the topside of the black panel which gives it just enough clearance for the joystick controls to pass through below it.

[Edwin Korstanje]

Wow Jeroen,

The ejection seat mechanism is superB. 

Love your thinking out of the box and can't waiting on your next progress. 

[2LegoOrNot2Lego...]

Cool! :-)

[dr_spock]

Neat. That worked well.  Do you have plans to save the F14's weapons officer in the future?  

 

[dmarkng]

So cool. Can't wait to see it all come together.

[Jeroen Ottens]

Hi,

A short update before my travels:

I have been able to fit all 6 motorized functions inside and have controls for the joystick running from front to back. I think it is a stiff structure that is buildable (but there is only so much you can keep in your head when building digitally so maybe I have some floating parts or impossible constructions somewhere inside, it is quite densily packed inside... Blakbird will have a fieldday making a cutaway render of this thing ). I even managed to get the motor inside the model .

I have made the hull medium blue using only parts that are currently in production. Parts that are not available in medium blue are LBG to invoke some sort of (Russian) NAVY camouflage vibe... The wings can be black, grey or a mix of medium blue and grey I think... The cockpit will most likely be black...

So what do you think of the colourscheme?

Another colourscheme I have been thinking of is black-orange like on Poe's X-wing... Also completely fictional, but I fear it will be very... well... ehh... black. I'm not sure I'll be able to get enough orange accents to offset the black. The orange might also be visually so attracting (distracting?) that it has to show the main lines of the plane otherwise it will spoil instead of enhance the looks (with the non-existance of orange axles and the limited choice in flexaxles that is going to be difficult).

[Edwin Korstanje]

Stick with the medium blue Jeroen, great color choice. 

[teos]

It's a shame that 42066 wasn't something like this.  Medium blue is nice, though I liked the dark blue better (not sure about part availability with that).

[februar88]

On 28.02.2017 at 0:26 AM, Jeroen Ottens said:

I have made the hull medium blue using only parts that are currently in production. Parts that are not available in medium blue are LBG to invoke some sort of (Russian) NAVY camouflage vibe... The wings can be black, grey or a mix of medium blue and grey I think... The cockpit will most likely be black...

Actually we have changed standart NAVY colorscheme and now we use dark grey for all kind NAVY aircrafts.  Earlier we used to apply any sort of camouflage (desert, khaki, urban, dirty blue) topside and light blue for underside - to make aircraft less visible at any angle. But now it's useless, ofc. 

[Ellisss_2]

Hello!

This is an awesome rendition of the Tomcat so far! Wish I'd found this sooner, I'm a massive aviation lover myself. The functions look great, I can't wait to see the swing wings!

Why the 'Russian' colour scheme though, it is a US jet?  

Good luck! 

Kind regards, Ellis.

[Jeroen Ottens]

7 hours ago, februar88 said:

Actually we have changed standart NAVY colorscheme and now we use dark grey for all kind NAVY aircrafts.  Earlier we used to apply any sort of camouflage (desert, khaki, urban, dirty blue) topside and light blue for underside - to make aircraft less visible at any angle. But now it's useless, ofc. 

 

1 hour ago, Ellisss_2 said:

Hello!

This is an awesome rendition of the Tomcat so far! Wish I'd found this sooner, I'm a massive aviation lover myself. The functions look great, I can't wait to see the swing wings!

Why the 'Russian' colour scheme though, it is a US jet?  

Good luck! 

Kind regards, Ellis.

The colour really is dictated by parts availability. I'd love to make the plane in LBG or DBG, but there are hardly any panels available in that colour... Funnily enough the best colour in terms of panel availability seems to be medium blue... The 3x11 curved panel with 10 holes are key to the structure of the plane and these are only available in hard colours like yellow, red, blue, medium azure and black. The only toned down colour is medium-blue (LBG would have been perfect, DBG, tan or white OK-ish). A medium-blue grey scheme reminded me of some Russian MIG pictures I saw a long time ago, hence the reference to the Russians. I have no idea whether the Americans ever used that colourscheme (I haven't found any photo of a Tomcat with such a paintjob though).

[Ellisss_2]

Surprises me that the pieces are most widely available in Light Blue!

However, I hope these pictures help, I think the colour scheme of this Tomcat is beautiful! 

Kind regards, Ellis.

Edited March 1, 2017 by Ellisss_2

[Jeroen Ottens]

40 minutes ago, Ellisss_2 said:

 

Surprises me that the pieces are most widely available in Light Blue!

However, I hope these pictures help, I think the colour scheme of this Tomcat is beautiful! 

Kind regards, Ellis.

I've never seen those, that is nice! Probably a little too much detail in the colour to properly replicate without stickers, but definitely an inspiration.