1/72 'Asas' F-5E Tiger II

by Miguel Ribeiro

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Hi! This is my very first contribution to ARC. The idea begun in the Portuguese forum AHS-online (http://aviation-hobby-site.com/online/) a year ago, in a group build entitled "Utopic PoAF". The theme was obvious, to build in Portuguese colors and markings, aircraft that never served in Portuguese Air Force. That was the case of the F-5E Tiger II, an aircraft that could but never entered in the PoAF inventory. In fact, back in the mid seventies Portugal received six Northrop T-38A Talon for pilot advanced training that remained in service until 1993, but the F-5E never came. The exclusive A7-P and TA-7P Corsair II aircraft were acquired instead as replacements for the F-86 Sabre. This is the reality, than came the fiction… What If… we had received the F-5E?… in the mid nineties they certainly had been retired with the Talons when the F-16A and B came to town (1993). But almost at the same time the Portuguese aerobatic team "Asas de Portugal" ceased to exist due to structural problems in they're T-37C. So the story is now told in a different way, and the brave pilots of the "Asas" soon were flying in a new aircraft, the renewed, after IRAN, F-5E Tiger II. The painting was altered because of the different lines of the new aircraft, but the basic colors (white, red, green) were maintained. Because aerobatics was to be its only mission in the future all the armament was removed from the F-5E's.

Click on images below to see larger images

Because I didn't preserve the box, I only remember that the model is a 1:72 Hobby (something) Chinese (go figure) kit. Although it had interesting details in the cockpit and wheel bays, the main parts needed a long effort of filling and sanding and the wings were a nightmare to fit. It was made OOB except for some scratch in the cockpit. It was brush painted with gloss enamels (Humbrol). The decals are from spares.

Miguel

Photos and text © by Miguel Ângelo Ribeiro