MOC-121573 F14 Tomcat Aircraft

Overall a great model to build. The only criticism I have is the folding wings putting it together can be a slight challenge.

This would have been one of the best Tomcats on the web a few years ago, but in 2023 it's neither the most accurate, most feature-rich, most detailed, or most sturdy Tomcat available. Still, it's nice to be able to buy it as a kit, and it is a good starter Tomcat. Features include the dorsal airbrake, retractable landing gear, moving rudders and horizontal stabilizers, swing wings, opening canopy, and three moving flaps on the trailing edge of each wing and two moving flaps on the leading edge. The instructions can sometimes be hard to follow, but it's not too bad. The build is pretty sturdy all the way through. There were only a couple of very small missing parts that were easily replaced. All the "any color" parts on the inside are light gray in the kit. The kit comes with a display stand, which you can download free instructions for on Rebrickable.

All that is pretty nice. The disappointing parts are the clutch power of the bricks (too weak), the worm gear that synchronizes the wings (too weak; I removed it soon after completing the build), the lack of friction in the Technic pins (they can't hold the horizontal stabilizers up), the straight-up-and-down stance of the vertical stabilizers (they should be canted out slightly), and especially the limited range of sweep of the wings. One of the things a Tomcat model should really do well is sweep the wings all the way. Unlike most Tomcat models, this one can't sweep the wings all the way back into the oversweep position for storage on the carrier deck, which is disappointing.