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
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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
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