The
F-5E was developed from the F-5A by Northrop and was intended for export
as a cheap and capable fighter aircraft. In the end, over 25 nations
ended up flying versions of the F-5. The United States Air Force,
United States Navy and the US Marines all ended up flying the F-5E, mainly
as an aggressor aircraft to mimic Soviet Block MiG’s. In April
1962 the US Secretary of Defence approved the selection of the F-5 for the
Military Assistance Programme (MAP) and this lead to the F-5A and F-5B
models. Northrop then developed the F-5E in-house and proposed it to
the Defence Department and the USAF. In November 1970 the F-5E was
chosen and in December 1970 a contract was issued for 325 aircraft,
officially designated the F-5E.
The
F-5E first flew in August 1972 and deliveries to the 425th TFTS
at Williams AFB commenced in April 1973 (this unit was responsible for
training foreign pilots, whose countries had, or would later purchase the
F-5E. The F-5F followed into service soon afterwards.
My
build was the first batch of around 30 aircraft which I want to model,
covering all variants of the F-5 in USAF service as well as the F-20
Tigershark. Whilst there are a few kits of the F-5E available in
1/72nd scale, probably the best is the Italeri release which
has now been around since the 1980’s and the five models I built all
came from this manufacturer (note that the Hobby Boss release appears to
be a copy of the Italeri kit, although the fin does not fit well and I
believe there are also issues with the canopy).
The
Italeri kit is quite simple and goes together reasonably well, although it
does show it’s age in that the panel lines are raised rather than being
engraved. The cockpit is quite good and there is good detail in the
undercarriage bays. To increase the level of detail, I made a few
changes. The cockpit was replaced with a resin one from IPMS
Austria, and I used True Details resin seats. I modified the intakes
to represent ones with blanking plates fitted and cast resin replacements.
I drilled out the gun barrels and replaced them with Minimecca steel
tubing. The navigation lights were drilled out, silver was added
with a marker pen and Tamiya clear (red and green) was added. I cast
copies of the navigation lights on the intakes in clear resin, masked the
fronts off and attached them – removing the mask later left the front of
the lights clear.
The
only real fit problems I had were with the fuselage. This comes in
two halves (upper and lower) and all five of mine cracked after the halves
had been joined. Whether this was because the cockpits splayed the
fuselage halves or because the plastic was waxy and didn’t join well I
don’t know – but friends who have also built this kit have had the
same problem! I also noticed that the 5 I built all came from
different production batches as the plastic varied from a brittle medium
grey to a very waxy light grey!
Click on
images below to see larger images
For
my first batch of F-5E’s, I chose a wide selection of airframes to
depict. Two are aggressor aircraft, one in a modified Sand scheme,
and the other in the VNAF Scheme (actually SEA!). This latter scheme
is quite interesting – at the end of the Vietnam War, the USAF had a
batch of F-5E’s which were to be delivered to the VNAF. When the
US pulled out, the aircraft were redirected to Nellis AFB where they
became Aggressors.
I
have, for many years, wanted to model the F-5E’s which were used to
trial the Ferris camouflage schemes and two of my models depicted the
different schemes. After painting the two, I realised that the paint
scheme information I had was incorrect as the shades of grey recommended
were far too light (and one even missed the lower colour entirely!) – I
decided to accept this as the alternative would be a complete repaint!
The
final aircraft was used for development work by the USAF. I chose to
depict it as used during trials of the GPU-5/A gun pod (the pod is not
shown in the photographs as I had not painted it at that point!)
Paints
used were mainly Xtracolor, although the Sand aircraft was painted using a
custom mix of Humbrol paint. I made a colossal error in using Humbrol
Glosscote prior to decaling and completely ignored advice to the contrary
(mainly because it was the only gloss varnish I had in stock!) It never
dried properly (even thinned 50/50 with thinner) and picked up dust and
fingerprints afterwards. Unfortunately, even a coat of Pollyscale Matt
varnish did not hide all of the damage and the end finish is nowhere as good as
it could have been – you live and learn I guess... However, I did try
out a few new techniques, and this was the first use of my new Iwata Hi-Line
HP-CH which I highly recommend!
Chris
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