Hi all, after years of enjoying
articles on this extremely informative website I have decided to try and give
something back. Although this model is no where near the caliber of others and
the photos hastily taken by my cell phone camera, I hope this posting will
nevertheless provide some coverage on this topic i.e. U.S Navy Adversary
fleet.
This is my F-5E in 1/48 scale by
Italeri and I would have to say it is not as accurate as the Revell/Monogram,
the lines/shape of the nose of the plane extending all the way to the engines
is not as realistic as its counterpart and several other areas are a little
off in terms of measurements, but I won't dwell on this.
This is however merely a reboxing of the old Esci's kit with the US Marines
adversary decals flying out of Yuma. The decals however appear to be too
Orange rather than Red, and the Marine emblem inside the Soviet Star does not
have a globe, which seems quite odd.
Click on
images below to see larger images
There is a severe lack of
producers of the F-5E in 1/48 scale. However even more so is the F-5F
1/48, I have been trying to stock up the OOP F-5F model which is extremely
hard to find. I find the F-5F accentuate the beautiful lines of the F-5E and
extending what makes it beautiful esthetically beyond the F-5E. Revell/Monogram's
F-5E is the most realistic in its scale 1/48, however one area which I find
disappointing (as it is not hard to replicate) is the infamous F-5E canopy
opening mechanism which is so prominent in the real jet but replicated in the
Revell model by 2 rods. I think 2 rods hardly do the complicated opening
mechanism justice, and that is why the Black Box F-5E cockpit/with the opening
mechanism is selling for around 60-70 USD.
It is quite interesting to note
that it is in this area where the Italeri kit exceeds the Revell, the Italeri
kit replicates the Opening mechanism in 2 simple parts, however simple it
definitely beats 2 round rods.
My model carries partly fictitious
markings attempting to replicate the Black F-5E which was inspired after the
Topgun movie in the mid 80s. I have actually now obtained the proper decals
for the actual black aircraft and hopefully you will be seeing that on here in
the near future.
The model was built straight out
of the box. Decals were a combination of Twobobs Desert Cats VFC-13 decals and
some old decals I had. Paint used was Gunze Acrylic gloss (I know the real
aircraft was matt).
The Topgun decal was from the
Hasegawa F/A-18 1/72 Black Topgun NSAWC aircraft. I thought it would be fitting
for it to be worn on the venerable adversary aircraft.
Thanks for reading and I will bring you more adversary aircraft in the near
future!
Jacey
Click on
images below to see larger images
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