by Phil Blumenthal
Phoenix Scale Publications is known for releasing a monthly magazine, but have done so with a good number of books, like the great Volume 1 and 2 about the Canberra. One of their latest release is about the famous F-14 Tomcat.
Little needs to be said about the legend that the fantastic Grumman F-14 is, a Navy air superiority fighter, that turned ground attack and recce aircraft in later years. 20 years ago the last F-14 officially flew and it surely is missed dearly on the deck of the U.S. carriers, like so many other planes of its era.
As always with the books from Phoenix, there are essentially two parts: The history of the jet in all its variants including a small walkaround section plus a part dedicating to modelling.
At first we are introduced into the history of the development of the F-14, the prototypes and the first series jets, the F-14A. The next chapter cis dedicated to the F-14A+ and F-14B, followed by the F-14D and the F-14D Bombcat and the infamous Tomcats for Iran. These are followed by chapters of the Tomcat at war: Early Encounters, Lybia, Lebanon, War in the Gulf, War in the Balkans, Operation Enduring Freedom, Return to the Gulf.
We know dwelve into the engines of the F-14, the famous AIM-54 Phoenix, the TARPS configuration, colors, a small chapter on test Tomcats plus a good number of nice color profiles.
The modelling part consists of build reports on how to build six kits in 1:72, 1:48 and 1:32 including those of Tamiya, AMK and Trumpeter.
Photos mainly are of good quality, the writing over 162 pages is interesting especially for those interested in building the F-14. Now the biggest issue and a real nuisance are the captions. Often they are short and describe what we see anyway (example: „Riding the Tomcat“), but many times they are plain wrong and with the wrong photo. This happened before on other Phoenix books, but I do not remember having encountered it in such a number.
With some proof reading this could be easily solved and I hope Phoenix will release an updated version some time soon with correct captions. I know they can do better.
Their next book is a Blue series issue dedicated to the Republic F-84 family.
Summary:
The Grumman F-14 Tomcat
By Andy Evans
Real to Replica Red Series
Number 17
9 781919 341149
Price: £27.99
162 pages
A look inside the book