COBI F-14A Tomcat Set 5811

COBI's F-14A Tomcat is a 1:48 model built from 757 blocks, 38.5 cm long, under the original Top Gun and Northrop Grumman licences. The wings sweep, the landing gear retracts, the wheels turn, and a full weapons load hangs under the fuselage. Two figures are included — Maverick and Goose — with their names printed on their seats, helmets and oxygen masks. A display stand and a plaque with the film logo complete the set.

The man in the back seat had the important job

The Tomcat was a two-seater and the second man was not a co-pilot. He was the Radar Intercept Officer, and he operated a system no other fighter in the world had.

The AWG-9 radar could detect a target at over 300 kilometres, track twenty-four aircraft at once, and guide six AIM-54 Phoenix missiles at six different targets simultaneously — at ranges beyond 100 kilometres. Nothing else came close, and nothing since has quite matched the Phoenix's reach.

That capability is the reason the aircraft exists. The US Navy's problem in the late 1960s was Soviet bombers carrying anti-ship missiles: a carrier group needed to destroy them before they got within launch range, hundreds of kilometres out. The Tomcat was built around a radar and a very long-range missile, and the airframe — the swing wings, the two engines, the enormous size — follows from having to carry them a long way from the ship and stay there.

Which makes the dogfighting the films are about something of a side job. It was good at it. It was designed for something else entirely.

In practice the Phoenix was almost never fired in anger. A weapon that prevents an attack from being attempted does not appear in the statistics.

In the COBI range

Set 5811A is the later edition of this same model. Set 5920 is the F-14 from Top Gun: Maverick, 5859 the black "MiG-28", 5923 the 1:300 mini Tomcat and 5922 the aircraft carrier.

Specifications

Pieces: 757 · Figures: 2, Maverick and Goose · Scale: 1:48 · Official Top Gun licence · Swing wings
Model dimensions: 38.5 × 27 × 10.5 cm (15.2 × 10.6 × 4.1 in)