[tripoli]

Received my second Century Wing Grim Reaper, after my first, the Jolly Rogers F-14A.
The box was nice as before, conservatively sharp and practical in holding the model. Instructions on the printed box bottom were basically the same as before. The weapon load is of course more for land bombing missions as noted on other past threads.
The big difference was the model mold itself. It does still have the same beaver tail as before and at first glance, you would not really see too many differences. But upon close inspection, there are some large changes to the plane from the A model to the D model. First off, the engines are upgraded as to the real aircraft. Looks nice although there is a slight lack of detail I had expected to the nozzles themselves. Not bad, just very basic. Not as much to see to the end nozzle paneling as I had expected. The larger nozzle size does impact the stand which did not change to accommodate the new mold. With the slightly larger nozzles, it is more difficult to get the stand to snap in the flight mode. It can be done with a bit of pressure and a bit of pushing the plastic tab to get that snapped into the main tube hole in the bottom center of the model. If you have a full bomb load, it will not sit squarely on the stand which results in a slight less tilt on the display compared to the A models.
The paneling is defined about the same as before, the darker paint makes the lines appear deeper than the Jolly Rogers semi gloss paint coat does. The metal pieces fit well together on this model, better than my A model. You will notice the difference in placement of the antennas on the top body immediately. The forward wing edges lack the forward winglet panel on the leading wing edge before the swing wing. The first big clue that this is a different mold. There is a small change in the shape as well, which clues you in further this is not your same A model mold. The detailing to the paneling is as good as the A model, Century Wings hits another great home run with this model. The IRSTS pod is modeled well, on the bottom nose makes the D model look all the more serious of a fighter aircraft.
The paint job detailing is again first rate. There are subtle differences in the blue hues of the different paints just used as is on the real aircraft.
The pieces seem to fit just slightly off for the landing gear bays again. Takes just a bit of careful handling to get them in right, once in they look beautiful. The missiles seem to be fitting just a bit better with this model; they lock in tight enough that handling the model will not result in premature launching of ordinance.
All in all a nice model yet again by Century Wings. I think really it will become a matter of preference on which paint scheme you personally like from squadron to squadron that will influence which model looks better and which is your favorite. Overall, this is another supreme well made model with a superb bang for the buck on what you get. After reading one Grim Reapers class squadron's motto "We'd fly 10,000 nm miles to smoke a camel" along with some other colorful class motto's, you know this aircraft does a great job of depicting a very spirited squadron.
http://www.patchquestinc.com/product...mel-medium.JPG
Another super job on the livery makes you want to collect all of them.

[SKUNKY]

Originally Posted by tripoli

Another super job on the livery makes you want to collect all of them.

If only I could ......nice review there, tripoli..............New Century?...Oh well, somebody else called them Century21 the other day...

[tripoli]

The dangers of typing late at night. Edited Century back to its rightful name.
Skunky, one day you will have them, don't despair. Wish I could have gotten into this when the first Jolly Rogers AJ200 came out, would have loved to display a squadron pair in flight. Nice to have a D model though on display as well.

[bsmith13]

Tripoli,

Thanks for the review. Nice avatar, too!

[tripoli]

One new thing I just noticed, it was easier to get the figures into their seats. There are no ejection handle rings on this D model.
So for those F-14 experts, did they change the ejection seat model from the A to D F-14 or is this an oversight by Century Wings?

[Andrew]

Yep, they changed the ejection seats to the Aces II which doesn't have the rings on top. The ejection handles are on the sides and between the legs i think. I remember reading an article of a USN Cdr that was having a joy ride on an F-14 and accidently pulled the ejection handles because no one told him what NOT to hang on to while the plane was doing its maneuvers. Pilot managed to fly the plane back himself. It was from VF-213

[SKUNKY]

Originally Posted by Andrew

....Pilot managed to fly the plane back himself. It was from VF-213

Must've been much easier to fly after he got rid of that ballast in the back seat.

[David Hingtgen]

F-14D seats are NACES (SJU-17), not ACES II. Later Hornets, and all Super Hornets, also use NACES. And the lack of ejection rings is the easiest way to spot them from the F-14A/B seat (which is the GRU-7). http://www.ejectionsite.com/sju17seat.htm

And here's the infamous VF-213 incident: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-photo-vf213-21.htm

[SKUNKY]

I wonder if he flew in to any cow pee....

[chiefs70]

Originally Posted by tripoli

wanted to post in the market place but needed two more post, so hoping this is not a problem posting this here. if so, I will edit it out.

Just spam the other threads with innocuous comments to bump your post total since most of us do the same thing anyway.