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1/72 Italeri/Esci F-5B Turkish Air Force - Completed -


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The T-38/F-5 family is one that I have always liked a lot. These aircrafts look very sleek and give the impression of being much faster than they actually are. They were also a huge sales success and wore many exotic camo schemes and markings, all good reasons for them being among many modeller's favourite subjects. I could not give up on taking part in this STGB !

Let's start with an aircraft that I've wanted to represent in model form for a very long time. This is 5-408, an F-5B of the Turkish Air Force. Being a former USAF aggressor machine, this aircraft still sports the original 3-blue scheme to which the Turkish insigna are added.

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Turkey---Air/Northrop-F-5B-Freedom/0752723/L/

I've always wanted to build a model of 5-408 since this and other aircrafts from the same unit visited an Italian airbase in the mid '80s and pictures appeared on a local aviation magazine. The lack of decal was the main obstacle until I found a Carpena sheet for sale on this same forum.

The kit I'll use is the well known Italeri rebox of the very good Esci F-5B. As these kits will feature heavily in this STGB, there's not much I can add to what others have already said, so let's start with the usual box:

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Sprues

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And the decals, including the aftermarket sheet I'll use

IMG_0882_zpskihitjmi.jpg

Edited by Giorgio N
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welcome aboard and I think you right in that we will see quite a few of these models in this build!

I do like the colour scheme choice, are you going to do it the same as the one in the photo with the different coloured tanks? That would certainly make it stand out!

Well good to see you here, good luck with the build, and look forward to seeing her completed.

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Yes, I will do the tanks in the SEA scheme, these are another interesting feature of this aircraft and would be a pity to leave them off.

I've yet to decide on what I'll be doing with this in terms of extra detail. I don't like the very plain cockpit, I may add something. At the same time I may decide to build this one quick and leave the detailing for a future model (I have another identical box in the stash).

The colour scheme will be a bit of a challenge for two reasons: first, masking such a complex scheme on a model as small as a 1/72 F-5 is going to be a nightmare; second, the three blues may need mixing as they are not easily available as acrylics.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The various painting problems that hit the F-105 I'm building for the Vietnam GB have left me with some time to start working on this model. As usual, work started from the cockpit. Here Italeri has simply replaced Esci decals with other decals. As I've decided to keep this build simple, I'm using the decals, although some details have been painted on. The decals are not great and the various instruments are not really realistic. The panels are also not too accurate as depicted, particularly the rear one. In any case, this will do for this one.

IMG_0900_zpsx6u3dr03.jpg

A dry fit of the cockpit tub in the front fuselage halves showed that gaps would have been present between the consoles and the inner sides of the fuselage. To avoid this I've decided to glue thin plasticard. This also covers a couple of nasty ejector marks located right in the middle of the cockpit area...

IMG_0885_zpsrqevqa29.jpg

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Kits where the fuselage is split in a front and a rear part can always suffer from poor fit in these areas and for this reason I've decided to join front and rear on both fuselage halves. This should help with fit. My memory of the Esci kit is that it actually fits very well but better err on the safe side.

The cockpit has yet to be completed but at this point can be inserted in the right fuselage half. For some reason there are no tabs on the left half so this is the only way to align the tub within the fuselage

IMG_0903_zps5bterazc.jpg

Fit is not too bad, but looking at the cockpit from the front showed one less than ideal feature: there's nothing between front and rear seat !

IMG_0902_zpsv0pkficb.jpg

As there should be some sort of bulkhead, some plasticard bits were shaped to close this area. Nothing too complicated (remember, this is supposed to be a mainly OOB build) but improves the look a bit. The parts still need some filler and the final coat of paint. These will be given after the fuselage is closed.

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I can't remember if this kit needs weight in the front or not, in any case better add some. I've used fishing weights embedded in epoxy filler here. There's still plenty of space under the cockpit in case I decide to add more but a first dry fit seems to indicate that the weight is enough.

IMG_0904_zpsmvrtby3m.jpg

One small detail that can be seen in the picture above is that I've built walls for the nose gear well. These are missing from the kit but IMHO are worth adding.

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The cockpit does look nice, however there are several inaccuracies. On my next F-5B I'd like to be able to add a better replica of the real cockpit, for this model the parts included in the box will be enough.

With the cockpit completed, it's only been a matter of a few hours to put the main fuselage parts together

IMG_0909_zpslqsxl17p.jpg

The fit was not bad but some parts needed sanding. Of course sanding with all the antennas in place meant having to remove them... they'll be replaced at a later stage.

The exhausts in this kit are very shallow. I unashamedly copied the solution Mirageiv used on his F-5A in this same STGB, apart from adding some form of turbine. I'll just add a black painted plasticard disc

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Moving to the wings, I noticed that the top showed traces of the underlying wheel wells. Guess that when the parts cooled after moulding something happened. To solve this I sanded the wings. I also started gluing the leading edges and here I think that Italeri made a mistake in the instructions, parts 7 and 8 should be reversed.

IMG_0912_zpsaxecul2e.jpg

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Some more things about this build: first of all I've yet to glue the seats because I've found that "my" aircraft seem to have the later style headrest. Now the Esci/Italeri kit only offers the earlier style. I may modify the headrest with filler or plasticard, however I may clone the seat found in the Sword T-38C kit. This would require the addition of the rails and other details, I may actually combine the Sword and Esci parts.

On the positive side, I found a picture showing this same aircraft just before delivery to Turkey

http://f16crewchief.deviantart.com/art/F-5B-transfer-to-Turkey-417044086

This will help me a lot in determining the correct camo scheme

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Some small but important update: I sorted the intake splitter plates by replacing with 0.4mm thick plasticard. With the intakes on it was time to glue the wings. With these parts attached, the elegant shape of the F-5 becomes evident

IMG_0914_zpsksvvl7j5.jpg

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The next step will be adding all the various intakes to the main airframe, followed by the canopy. I should also start looking into the seat

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Looking good (again :)), how did you find the fit of the wings around the lower join with the intakes/fuselage (it looks very good looking at the pictures)? I have had to use a lot of putty here on my first jet, will try and avoid it on my second one if there is anything you did to modify it?

Cheers,

David.

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Looks like we're building the same aircraft Giorgio! I think I'll build something else instead.

Please, don't change your plans ! Will be good to see another interpretation of the same aircraft.

Looking good (again :)), how did you find the fit of the wings around the lower join with the intakes/fuselage (it looks very good looking at the pictures)? I have had to use a lot of putty here on my first jet, will try and avoid it on my second one if there is anything you did to modify it?

Cheers,

David.

I did not have too many problems here. I have to say that I worked quite a lot on the fit of the ventral part of the fuselage so that only a small step remained where the wing has to go. The front part of the LERX (the one going in the recesses under the intakes) needed some persuasion to sit flush in this area. I also cleaned these recesses to avoid the LERX from springing out.

Repairs time ! One note of warning for everybody building the Italeri box of the F-5B: the instructions say to add the arresting hook and the ventral intakes for all options. This is wrong !!! These details should only be used for the Dutch options or for any ex Dutch aircraft. The Norwegian aircrafts IIRC used the arrestor hook too.

As I was not checking my references properly, I had drilled the holes for the intakes and the hook, Now these will have to be filled.... My fault for trusting the instructions without checking. What is funny is that the original Esci instructions actually correctly mentioned the use of these parts (and the chaff/flare dispensers) for the Dutch option only

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  • 2 weeks later...

Very small update: some more bits have been added to the airframe, like windscreen and pylons.

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The wrongly drilled holes, now covered with filler, can be seen. The outboard pylon locations have also been filled. The pylons suffered from very visible ejector marks that required filling too. For the pito tube in the end I decided to use the kit parts, on a future build of the same kit I'll do something better.

The model is now almost ready for a first coat of primer

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  • 3 weeks later...

Finally managed to start painting ! And immediately hit problems, not serious fortunately.

This aircraft was IMHO painted in the so called "New Blue" scheme. This scheme used 3 different blues. FS 35414, 35164 and 35109 (from lighter to darker).

FS 35109 is not available in acrylic form but I have an old Humbrol Authentic enamel that looks pretty good, I can either use the Humbrol paint or mix acrylics to taste. FS 35164 should not be a problem as I have paints matched to this.. or better, paints that claim to be matched to this. More on this in a future post...

FS 35414 is the lightest colour and I initially had a plan to mix a couple of acrylics to achieve the desired tint. Then for some reason I decided I had enough ! So I searched for something similar and decided to use an even lighter colour, FS 35622 from the Gunze range. The problem is not much that this paint is lighter (I always start with lighter paints anyway) but it has a greenish tinge that 35414 lacks. In any case, this is what I've started applying, hopefully the green is not too prominent. When compared to pictures of the real aircraft this paint does not look too bad.

As the plan is to spray the whole aircraft in this colour, I've decided to do this in stages, first stage involved spraying the fuselage and fin

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I hadn't used Gunze paints in a while and I had forgotten how well they spray and how nice and smooth the finish is. I should maybe use them more often !

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