Hiya! This is a 1/48 F-5E kit
modified into Singapore's F-5S upgraded F-5 standards.
I was asked to build this for
someone by a friend of mine. The kit was supplied by the customer and I wished
I hadn't agreed to the job in the first place! This was the worst kit I've
ever made in many a moon bar none! But more on that later. First here's
some info on the F-5 upgrade:
The F-5E/F Tiger II was introduced
into service with the RSAF in the 70s as our first supersonic fighter and gave
sterling service thru the years. As it was getting long in the tooth, the air
force decided to undertake an upgrade program similar to that for the Skyhawks
to give it a new lease of life and bring it's antiquated avionics up to
current standards. The contract was awarded to ST Aerospace Engineering to
carry out the upgrade. Under the program, the aircraft would be fitted with
the Fiar Grifo multi-mode radar and the cockpit upgraded to a 'glass cockpit'
config with 2 MFDs(1 color and 1 monochrome) and a modern wide angle
HUD, HOTAS as well as NVG compatible lighting. I've included a pic from
ST's newsletter showing a sanitized cockpit. Internally it would have all
new avionics like the MIL 1553 databus, digital mission computers, new
Honeywell INS etc... Externally there were minor changes that were barely
noticeable at the distance. The nose section was shortened by a foot to
accommodate a larger diameter radome and the 2 undernose antennas were moved
back for this reason. With the addition of all the new avionics, the stbd M-39
cannon was removed to make way for all the black boxes and the cannon
port faired over on initial upgraded aircraft. Later a ram air intake similar
to that found on the F-5Fs was installed for avionics cooling and the mod
retrofitted to all upgraded aircraft which didn't have it initially. More
noticeable at least to F-5 fans was that the entire fleet now had the larger
W6 LEX commonly seen on sharknose birds fitted. Other mission equipment to
enhance the combat and survival capabilities of the F-5 were also installed
but which I will not comment on although it has be speculated on other
websites. The upgrade also serve to bring the fleet to a common standard as we
had at that time aircraft from early and late production blocks as well
as the 7 ex Jordanian aircraft. The upgrade was applied to the entire fleet
including the T-birds and the RF-5s. As the upgraded birds were so different
in capability from the baseline aircraft, their designations were change to RF/F-5S/T
to reflect their new status. S for Singapore and T for trainer. The fleet of
40+ aircraft are more or less equally distributed between the 3 squadrons, 144
SQN(OCU/ Fighter), 149 SQN(Fighter) and 141 SQN(Recon/ Fighter), with all the
RF-5Ss concentrated within 141 SQN. All 3 sqns are based at Paya Lebar AB.
With the upgrade, the RSAF has an aircraft that is equivalent or better than
the F-16, in terms of the capabilities but not the payload or range,
capable of soldiering on until replacement by the next generation fighter that
will be selected by the RSAF with the F-16 Bk 60, Eurofighter, Rafale amongst
the frontrunners.
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Now for the kit. As I said it was
a project I shouldn't have taken on but I was asked by a close friend and
besides, having worked on the F-5s for 4 years, I've wanted to build
one for a while and so I agreed. I've included a pic of the rollout for the
last bird to be upgraded (AC 821). I'm in there as well as my friend. Of
course the payment receivable upon completion was what made me persevere to
finish the kit! ;-) Upon opening the box (there was no brand on it), it
looked remarkably like the Monogram offering so I assume it was a Taiwanese
carbon copy of that kit. Unfortunately, that was where all similarities ended.
The fitting was horrible and the surface looked like miniature pebbles got
mixed in during the molding process. During the initial fitting, the gap at
the wingroots were big enough for me to swipe my credit card in! No joke!! The
left side of the forward fuselage bent inwards and required copious amounts of
Miliput and cyano to solve (think I included a after sanding pic) while the
right side was fine but had a huge gap I filled using cyano. In fact I used
lots of cyano on the kit(if it can be called that) as the plastic used was
rather rubbery and didn't take too well to Tamiya's cement, hence the cyano as
I didn't want the kit to fall apart. Also the instrument panel tilted back
towards the back so much that if it were on a real aircraft, the pilot would
have to fly with his head on the cockpit floor and his legs sticking up as
that's the only way he can see the instruments to fly! The flash inside the
intakes were so thick I thought it was a stopper for a intake blanking plate
but it wasn't! I also added the mods that go with the upgraded aircraft and
not found in the kit like the new cockpit, scratchbuilt refueling probe,
dorsal UHF antenna and the larger LEXs etc... ACMI pod was made using the
crappy AIM-9 in the kit while the AIM-9P4 was a Hasegawa AIM-9J. Last problem
encountered was the the canopy angle when left opened was way too low.
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After solving all the above and
other problems and sanding down most of the 'rocky' surface, it was painted in
the new fleet camo of FS 36375 Lt Ghost Gray and FS 36231 Dark Gull Gray.
These are the official colors stipulated by the air force and applied by
ST's paintshop before the aircraft goes back to service whether after the
upgrade or after routine phase servicing. I hope this dispels any further
speculation about the actual colors used. Even the instruction of the
Siam Decal sheet I used provided the wrong colors. The radome was sprayed
Dark Ghost Gray to show the larger radome. Actual item is a lighter color
although like the F-16 radome, it gets darker as it gets dirty. The
decals as mentioned came from Siam Decals as it the only game it town. It went
on really well even without solution and the only complain being that the
stencils were in the wrong colors. Those for the aft fuselage should have been
FS 36118 Gunship Gray. Nit picking I know but I guess after
working on the actual aircraft for so long it does happen I guess! I think
most aircraft fixers suffer from this problem whenever they make a model of
the plane they worked on. A note on serial numbers and sqn markings: the sqns
don't have permanent serial nos assigned but will pick aircraft coming out of
maintenance in accordance with their operational requirements. We had
delivered aircraft before with no sqn marking painted as the air force had not
decided which sqn it was going to! Hence it's not uncommon to see the same
aircraft in the markings of different sqns during different periods
of time so check your references! Exception being aircraft 813 and 850 as they
are assigned to the Flight Test Center(marking not included in decal).
I don't know where the kit was
bought but the hobby shop owner must be laughing all the way to the bank as the
kit was priced higher (pic of price tag included) than the Revell or
Italeri offerings! Hence I hope this article serves as a warning for Singaporean
modellers who may be under the persuasion that this is the only F-5E kit
available in Singapore! It's not! I have included a pic of the box as well.
Other hobby shops are still selling the Revell and Italeri/ESCI kits and they
are cheaper! Also the Monogram/ or Has/Monogram offering can still be found on
the net. Maybe if it were an F-5F it would be understandable as only Monogram
makes those and they're almost impossible to find here. For those who
already have bought the kit, well, guess the choice would be to complete it asap
and get it out of the way! Completed it does look alright though.
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Phew this was a looong article for
me! It was to be a short article at first but after all the problems I
encountered I felt I had an obligation to warn fellow modellers hence this
final edition. I'll be building the Monogram F-5F into an F-5T after I
finished the Phantom I was building when I got this project.
Lastly I would like to dedicate
this article to a friend of my, Desmond Chia, who passed away last Nov after a
long illness. We used to worked together on the F-5s before I left the company
and he was also my mentor when I first joined the company.
Cheers and happy modelling!
Andy
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