Eagle Designs 1/48
F-14 Bombcat Conversion

Eagle Designs released a 1/72 and 1/48 F-14 Bombcat conversion for the Hasegawa kits. While most of the details can be adapted for any other manufacturer's Tomcat kit, the vent panel for the gun was designed specifically for the Hasegawa kit. As you can see in the photo below, the parts are nicely molded and free from air bubbles. What is included in this set is very interesting:

1. F-14As in the fleet have been retro-fitted with the same style gas-vent doors as the F-14B and F-14D. Eagle has provided replacement doors for your Hasegawa F-14A.
2. Replacement panels and display for the rear cockpit.
3. Bomb shackles for the Phoenix pallets. (NOTE: The recent release of the Hasegawa 1/48 VX-9 F-14D has shackles and armament included in the kit. Put them all in your spares box and use the Eagle parts. The Eagle shackles appear to be more detailed than the kit renditions. Of course the bombs included in the kit are from Hasegawa's weapons set and represent the non-coated Air Force bombs. Save these for your F-15E!)
4. Two GBU-16 Laser-Guided Bombs (LGB). Each LGB is seven pieces, and the basic bomb is correctly textured to represent the safety coating applied to Navy bombs (a fire-proof coating designed to delay bomb detonation in case it is exposed to a fire aboard ship, if I recall correctly).
5. An adapter pylon to fit under the starboard wing that mounts the FLIR pod.
6. The FLIR pod. Eagle's FLIR pod captures the shape and details of the LANTIRN FLIR pod very nicely. (You might want to use this FLIR pod in place of the Verlinden FLIR on your F-15E or F-16C Block 40. The Navy's FLIR pod is in fact one of the two LANTIRN pods carried by the Air Force, but unlike the AF versions, the Navy's FLIR is all digital and state-of-the-art.)

The instructions also show you precisely where to add a drop of cyano on the dorsal spine of the Bombcat to represent the "Turtle Antenna".

You can see their full line-up of products on the Eagle Designs website and you can reach them at eagledesigns@hotmail.com.