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1/72 hasegawa F-5B


TOPGUN88

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Hi folks. i was wondering if anyone can tell me about the hasegawa T-38 (F-5B) kit. Is it possible to get an accurate F-5B or is it like the pm/pioneer kit?

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Not as bad as the PM kit but not much better... it's a very old kit, IIRC early 70's, so expect practically no detail (the cockpit consists of two things more similar to chairs than ejection seats and nothing else), very few parts and raised panel lines. I've never checked the kit for accuracy as I always found it inferior (way inferior...) to the Esci kit

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Not as bad as the PM kit but not much better... it's a very old kit, IIRC early 70's, so expect practically no detail (the cockpit consists of two things more similar to chairs than ejection seats and nothing else), very few parts and raised panel lines. I've never checked the kit for accuracy as I always found it inferior (way inferior...) to the Esci kit

And said ESCI/Italeri F-5B/F/? may be re-appearing at a store near you shortly...

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The F-5F is a more or less completetly different aircraft to the B, and the F kit is Italeri's (nice but raised panel lines etc.) own, not Esci's gorgeous B kit.

The Hase kit is actually yet a bit older, dating from the late 60s - something like Hase's kit # 16 or 17. In style, it and its A brother (and pseudo-T-38) are rather similar in style to the Airfix A. And I'd describe the seats rather more as a hard bench then a comfy chair...

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Just remember too, a T-38 and an F-5B are similar but not the same, IIRC, Hasegawa's kit is firmly more representative of a T-38, if you want an F-5B, the ESCI or the Italeri/Revell repop is the way to go.

I'm no expert but I think the intakes and the LERX are different shapes.

The F-5F is more akin to an F-5B on steriods, superficially similar but again completely different.

I made the Hasegawa F-5A many times in my callow youth. It came out the same time as the T-38 (late 60's), so they're similar for comparison. The F-5A had raised lines but not much detail, it went together better than the Airfix F-5A but not as well as the Matchbox F-5A. The latter seemed more clunky though.

All were eclipsed by the ESCI F/RF-5A/B/C series when they were released.

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The Hasegawa T-38 is just their F-5B to which the instructions suggest to remove the lerx and modify the intakes profile.

The problem is that there are other differences between the two types, some of which are not small (like a totally different profile of the mid lower fuselage).

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Just remember too, a T-38 and an F-5B are similar but not the same, IIRC, Hasegawa's kit is firmly more representative of a T-38, if you want an F-5B, the ESCI or the Italeri/Revell repop is the way to go.

I think it's the other way round - as Hase's B is their A with a new fuselage, and the T-38 is essentially the B kit, their "T-38" is much closer to a B than T-38.

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Aah so it was the other way around, Hasegawa's kit was an F-5B masquerading as T-38 and not the other way around? Thanks for the clarification.

Anyway, for an F-5B, ESCI or its repops are the way to go.

This is one of those cases of buyer beware! Just because it's a Hasegawa kit, it doesn't mean it's the best in the pond, this has long been surpassed by newer and better kits (although even the ESCI itself is about 35 years old, it is head and shoulders above the Hasegawa kit).

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Anyway, for an F-5B, ESCI or its repops are the way to go. [snip] (although even the ESCI itself is about 35 years old, it is head and shoulders above the Hasegawa kit).

Fully agree - Esci was on a par with just about anything from Japan then (actually, I think Giorgio himself confirmed Esci's best kits were tooled in Japan...) - sadly, they lost that position not long after, with half-baked kits like their F-14s.

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I concur, if you want to do an F-5B, the only choice IS the Esci offering. Revell did rebox it for a time, but beware as Revell also reboxed the Matchbox F-5B and that wasn't all that much better than Hasegawa's (in a few ways inferior). You get a much better cockpit, recessed panel detailing and the shapes are pretty good. Only inaccuracy I've heard of with it is it lacks the divider between the front and rear canopies. But I wouldn't worry about that unless you are building it with the canopies up (you don't see the problem at all with the canopies shut).


Concerning the Hasegawa T-38, it is most certainly an F-5B rather than a T-38 as the wings and intakes are all F-5B. Even the fuselage has the drag chute housing at the base of the tail, which the T-38s never had (AT-38s have an angular bulge down there, but I am not sure what it is used for). The Hasegawa kit does have ONE proper T-38 part though and that is the nose undercarriage strut, which has only a single fork. The F-5B nose gears have forks on either side and typically a fatter tire. As others have said, the cockpit is practically non-existent as you get two "chairs" and the cockpit tub is six pegs (for each seat) molded to the sidewalls. It is a lot of work for not much result. As far as I know, the Pioneer and Starfix F-5B/T-38 kits are cruder copies of the Hasegawa kit (Pioneer's being VERY crude).


The only true T-38 that has ever been done in 1/72 styrene is the Sword kit from about 10 years ago. It was a multi-media kit and isn't one of the easiest to build, but no one else has done a proper T-38. Esci's F-5B can be modified into a pretty good T-38, but you still need to scrounge a nose gear from a Hasegawa kit (thankfully they don't go for much). I recently wrapped up building Trumpeter's T-38 in 1/48 and it built up with no real problems. I would love it if they or Hobby Boss were to use the scaling data for the kit and size it down into a 1/72 offering.


As for the F-5F, which Italeri is reissuing... COMPLETELY different animal. The F-5B's length is about the same as the A since it used about the same nose contour. But F-5Bs don't have nose mounted 20 mm cannons like the As do. For the F-5F, Northrop designed an all new nose that could house both a single 20 mm cannon and pulse radar, making it 99% as combat capable as the F-5E. Now if you want to do an F-5F, Italeri is the only game in town, but it is not a bad choice at all as the basic contours and features are there and nicely done, even though some modelers might be put off by the raised panel lines (I'm not).

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One should remember that F-5A/B/C/D have almost no common parts (maybe except for the cockpit canopy) with F-5E/F. The latter are much bigger aircraft wing longer wings, fatter fuselage, beefier undercarriage a.s.o. It's something like the F/A-18A/B/C/D and F/A-18E/F/G.

Thus the ESCI (Italeri, Revell) F-5A/B/C (recessed) kit is the only game in town to go for the original variants. But it has nothing in common with the Italeri (raised) F-5E - the best 72nd scale F-5E on the market is Mini Hobby one, recently reissued by Trumpeter.

Cheers

Michael

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I concur, if you want to do an F-5B, the only choice IS the Esci offering. Revell did rebox it for a time, but beware as Revell also reboxed the Matchbox F-5B and that wasn't all that much better than Hasegawa's (in a few ways inferior). You get a much better cockpit, recessed panel detailing and the shapes are pretty good. Only inaccuracy I've heard of with it is it lacks the divider between the front and rear canopies. But I wouldn't worry about that unless you are building it with the canopies up (you don't see the problem at all with the canopies shut).

Going by memory here as I don't have the kit in front of me, but IIRC several bits in the cockpit could do with replacing, when I last built an Esci F-5B I noticed that the shape of the instrument coaming could do with modification. A resin pit would be a great addition to this kit, I hope someone will do one at some point

One should remember that F-5A/B/C/D have almost no common parts (maybe except for the cockpit canopy) with F-5E/F. The latter are much bigger aircraft wing longer wings, fatter fuselage, beefier undercarriage a.s.o. It's something like the F/A-18A/B/C/D and F/A-18E/F/G.

Thus the ESCI (Italeri, Revell) F-5A/B/C (recessed) kit is the only game in town to go for the original variants. But it has nothing in common with the Italeri (raised) F-5E - the best 72nd scale F-5E on the market is Mini Hobby one, recently reissued by Trumpeter.

Cheers

Michael

I would disagree on the superiority of the Mini Hobby kit over the Italeri one. Mini Hobby cloned the Italeri kit changin the parts layout and adding recessed panel lines that however are very heavy and IMHO not realistic at all. This kit also suffers from several sink marks. Worse aspect though is that the windscreen in the Mini Hobby kit is way too short, something very noticeable and practically impossible to correct without a replacement part.

When Trumpeter reissued the Mini Hobby kit, they modified the moulds somewhat. The Trumpeter issues suffer less from singk marks and they added a brand new instrument panel, much more accurate than the original Italeri one. Unfortunately the windscreen remained the too short Mini Hobby one.

Personally I would still get the Italeri kit, rescribe and replace the instrument panel

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I recently wrapped up building Trumpeter's T-38 in 1/48 and it built up with no real problems. I would love it if they or Hobby Boss were to use the scaling data for the kit and size it down into a 1/72 offering.

I hope they don't- they buggered the "scaling data" on the 1/48th kit, so they'd (or we'd) be much better off if they started with a clean sheet of... CAD.

One should remember that F-5A/B/C/D have almost no common parts (maybe except for the cockpit canopy) with F-5E/F. The latter are much bigger aircraft wing longer wings, fatter fuselage, beefier undercarriage a.s.o. It's something like the F/A-18A/B/C/D and F/A-18E/F/G.

Yes and no- the wing has a wider center to go with a somewhat wider fuselage (larger intakes, not sure what else). The fuselage is longer, with an added section somewhere in the middle, and the "spine" is extended aft under the fin, but the basic geometry of wing and tail surfaces does not change. Then of course the F has a longer nose than all the others, but the cockpit region is pretty much the same as the other two-seaters in shape.

So, you could do some kitbashing if found necessary, but getting a kit of the right generation would be a lot easier.

bob

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Going by memory here as I don't have the kit in front of me, but IIRC several bits in the cockpit could do with replacing, when I last built an Esci F-5B I noticed that the shape of the instrument coaming could do with modification. A resin pit would be a great addition to this kit, I hope someone will do one at some point

Fully concur, the last time I made an F-5A (some time ago now - before the Revell/Italeri repops), the only detail parts available for any of the F-5 series were an old Eduard PE set for the F-5E and the True Details resin seats, I used both, turning a blind eye to the differences between A and E cockpit layouts. I don't believe there to have been any further AM products added which is a real shame as the kit would really benefit from it (as would Italeri's F-5E/F).

One area that really needs some help is the complex canopy mechanism.

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...and add to this that the F-5 as a whole and 1st Gen. in particular is not at all well served with reference material.

Yet another post I concur with. Easily the best reference for the E/F is the old Verlinden 'Lock-on' book followed by the Detail and Scale book, other than those I don't recall very much.

For the A/B/C series I have an old Bilek magazine plus a few odd magazine articles scattered through several titles.

I don't get it as the type is actually quite an attractive aircraft and wears a plethora of colour schemes.

At least tere are plenty of decals for the series (I have decals for Dutch, Spanish,Brazilian, Venezuelan, Mexican and Canadian, Phillipine, Botswanan aicraft just to mention a few).

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An excellent reference is the "In Canadian Service" book, though I have reservations against the drawings, and it is of course Canadair-centric. The old in action provides some coverage, but more on the 2nd Gen than on the A to C. One of these days I'll have to look for the Canadian Profile. Given the number of operators and versions, and length of service, a 400 pager in A4 would be appropriate. One can dream...

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And for Dutch usage: De Northrop NF-5, C.J. van Gent.

Cheers,

Andre

Now that I like the look of, must look out for the Canadian book too!

Wez

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Simply look for CF-5 on Amazon, it's available for half than what I paid, also second hand on Big A ***gnashteeth*** BTW, it contains a host of material on Canadian twin stickers, so is quite on topic :-)

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Simply look for CF-5 on Amazon, it's available for half than what I paid, also second hand on Big A ***gnashteeth*** BTW, it contains a host of material on Canadian twin stickers, so is quite on topic :-)

Thanks for that, I'll look it up.

Wez

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I would disagree on the superiority of the Mini Hobby kit over the Italeri one. Mini Hobby cloned the Italeri kit changin the parts layout and adding recessed panel lines that however are very heavy and IMHO not realistic at all. This kit also suffers from several sink marks. Worse aspect though is that the windscreen in the Mini Hobby kit is way too short, something very noticeable and practically impossible to correct without a replacement part.

And I have to disagree that Mini Hobby just cloned the Italeri kit. This is not only the matter of parts layout - these kits are slightly different in engineering. Have look at the sprues.

Hobby Boss http://www.mojehobby.pl/zdjecia/5/1/6/2243_1_HBB80207_3.jpg

http://www.mojehobby.pl/zdjecia/4/1/6/2243_1_HBB80207_2.jpg

and Italeri http://www.mojehobby.pl/zdjecia/0/6/2/3362_1_ita1333_2.jpg

Italeri wings are integral with top fuselage, while in Trumpeter/MH/HB they are separate parts to be inserted into fuselage sides. Main undercarriage (legs, hubs, wheels, auxiliary struts) are totally different as is the instrument panel, pilot seat and the pilot himself. Moreover the fin outline is a little different (perhaps Italeri is better, as it's with the canopy) and the Chinese added two small (500 lb I suppose) bombs.

it's something that Academy had done with old FROG Avenger, Wildcat, Tomahawk, Ventura and others. And what the Czech short run makers are supoosed to do with other kits already present on the market :)

Cheers

Michael

Edited by KRK4m
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Michael,

I have all 3 kits and checked them all against each other. Mini Hobby indeed added a couple of parts (not particularly good I have to say) but their kit is still a copy of the Italeri one. The Mini Hobby cockpit parts are identical in every detail to the Italeri ones and fit in the same slots of the Italeri kit. Hobbyboss modified some parts of the Mini Hobby kit, for example the instrument panel (that as I mentioned is now accurate) and a few other bits. However a good number of parts are so similar that they are completely interchangeable, apart from the separate wings I could add any top fuselage half to any bottom fuselage half of another of the two kits and they will fit fine.

Clone or copy may not be the right words but whoever did the Mini Hobby kit had the Italeri one in his hands...

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Michael,

I have all 3 kits and checked them all against each other. Mini Hobby indeed added a couple of parts (not particularly good I have to say) but their kit is still a copy of the Italeri one. The Mini Hobby cockpit parts are identical in every detail to the Italeri ones and fit in the same slots of the Italeri kit. Hobbyboss modified some parts of the Mini Hobby kit, for example the instrument panel (that as I mentioned is now accurate) and a few other bits. However a good number of parts are so similar that they are completely interchangeable, apart from the separate wings I could add any top fuselage half to any bottom fuselage half of another of the two kits and they will fit fine.

Clone or copy may not be the right words but whoever did the Mini Hobby kit had the Italeri one in his hands...

OK, Giorgio, you win :) I cannot disagree with the last phrase of your post - surely he had to :)

Nevertheless a new tool (engraved) F-5E/F in 72nd scale is a must !

Cheers

Michael

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