IRIAF F-5E - a long background project using the Airfix kit

[Terry1954]

This project has been running in the background of a number of other builds over the last couple of years. I'm afraid there are no pictures of the early stages of assembly, but we can pick things up now as I start to prepare and apply the paint. I've not done much modelling over the last few months due to work and other things, but I have some spare cycles now to finish the Sabre 4 (repair) and progress this and the Vosper.

 

The IRIAF or the Islamic Republic Iranian Air Force, and prior to that the IIAF, or Imperial Iranian Airforce, has always fascinated me in terms of both aircraft that have served, and the style of camouflage. I seem to recall way back around the time the USAF began to apply the SEA two greens and tan camouflage, there was another "approved" American scheme referred to as Asia minor, which was brown, sand and green. I did once have the ability to reel off the FS numbers for these schemes, but right at this moment I confess I have a sheet of reference numbers giving Dark Green FS34079, Dark Brown FS 30140, Sand FS 30400 and Light Grey FS 36622. Anyway, the IRIAF scheme of that time derived form the Asia minor variety, and for some inexplicable reason, I love it! My desired "to do" list of aircraft in such a scheme includes F-5A's, B's, E's and F's, F-4D's and E's, and the good old F-14A. So this is my first example................

 

It's quite an old kit now, although not as old as the original F-5A "Freedom Fighter". I plan to use decals from the excellent Hi-Decal Line set no 72-052 for several Iranian F-5E/F's. I've also included an ejector seat from True details for the type. I've not quite decided on a load out, but certainly there will be a couple of "live" sidewinders on the wing tip rails, and a centre-line tank, with the wing pylons mounting either 4 x MK82SE bombs with Snakeye retarding fins, or possibly 4 BLU-27's. 

 

The story so far is best summed up in pictures I think:

 

 

Those go back quite a few months when I was getting the surface undercoat to a good state. Then the real fun began with the application of the intricate 3 tone upper surface colours. I'm using Lifecolor acrylics UA 021, UA 001, UA 085 and UA 084 which reference the above mentioned FS numbers.

 

 

As you can see, things start to get very interesting at this point:

 

 

And then there is that moment of the great reveal!

 

 

The keen eyed will notice that the blue tac has left some slight darker residue, but I have found this usually disappears under some Klear at a later stage. There is a fair bit of tidying up to do at the moment, but that's where we are at for now.

 

More will come as things progress.

 

Terry

Edited March 15, 2019 by Terry1954

[Courageous]

Nice to see you back at the bench Terry. Lovely scheme but as you say, that blutac leaves a residue, best of luck in ridding that.

I have an F-5 in the stash but mine will be for the Swiss boys. 

 

Stuart

[72modeler]

Terry,

 

Very nice model! One of my modeling buddies who builds weenie cookers uses the Styrofoam take-home boxes to mask soft-edge camouflage. He traces the pattern onto the flat Styrofoam sections, cuts them out, and holds them in place on the model with masking tape- I think it works best on flat surfaces, as the Styrofoam doesn't like to bend around curved surfaces. I prefer to use 2-3 pieces of masking tape to make a laminate that is thick enough to give scale overspray in 1/72 scale (Is there any other?) and is easily trimmed to shape on a glass or metal slab before application. If you use the low-tack painter's tape, you won't have any issues with pulling up existing paint. Can't wait to see the finished model- F5's are soooo pretty!

Mike

[Terry1954]

2 hours ago, Courageous said:

Nice to see you back at the bench Terry. Lovely scheme but as you say, that blutac leaves a residue, best of luck in ridding that.

I have an F-5 in the stash but mine will be for the Swiss boys. 

 

Stuart

Thanks Stuart. Yes I've had that effect before. It seems to be the genuine blu tac causes it - the cheaper white stuff doesn't, although in the past it has disappeared once a water based acrylic varnish has been applied. There is some tidying up to be done on some of the edges anyway, so we'll see where it leads ...............

 

1 hour ago, 72modeler said:

Very nice model! One of my modeling buddies who builds weenie cookers uses the Styrofoam take-home boxes to mask soft-edge camouflage.

Thanks Mike. The styrofoam method sounds interesting. I've used a few different ways todo this including paper templates. I'll persevere with the blu tac on this one for now. I agree F-5's are very pretty indeed. I have a B and two A's in the 1/72 stash (Italeri/esci) so expect to do others. 1/72 is my preferred scale but I've also got a T-38, an F-5B and an F-5A in 1/48th in the stash......... 😨

 

I once heard an amusing anecdote relating to the diminutive size of the F-5, which was something to do with the Norwegian F-5, where they claim the mosquitoes in Norway are so large, they need intake guards, to keep the F-5's out ............🤣🤣

 

Terry

[TheBaron]

Absolutely love that paint work Terry. Must have been a great feeling peeling back the masking to reveal it!

[Terry1954]

2 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Absolutely love that paint work Terry. Must have been a great feeling peeling back the masking to reveal it!

I must admit Tony, It did have a certain "ça fait du bien"!

 

Glad you like.

 

Terry

[opus999]

That's a great paint job! I love the F-5; a really neat looking aircraft and tons of possible subjects! (I did a Swiss one and have the kits/decals for a Spanish and a Mexican one.  Someday....)

 

I need to look in on your sabre!

[72modeler]

On ‎3‎/‎15‎/‎2019 at 12:45 PM, Terry1954 said:

Thanks Stuart. Yes I've had that effect before. It seems to be the genuine blu tac causes it - the cheaper white stuff doesn't, although in the past it has disappeared once a water based acrylic varnish has been applied. There is some tidying up to be done on some of the edges anyway, so we'll see where it leads ...............

 

Thanks Mike. The styrofoam method sounds interesting. I've used a few different ways todo this including paper templates. I'll persevere with the blu tac on this one for now. I agree F-5's are very pretty indeed. I have a B and two A's in the 1/72 stash (Italeri/esci) so expect to do others. 1/72 is my preferred scale but I've also got a T-38, an F-5B and an F-5A in 1/48th in the stash......... 😨

 

I once heard an amusing anecdote relating to the diminutive size of the F-5, which was something to do with the Norwegian F-5, where they claim the mosquitoes in Norway are so large, they need intake guards, to keep the F-5's out ............🤣🤣

 

Terry

Same for the Texas skeeters! I have enjoyed watching our all-white, blue and white, and two-tone grey T-38's over the years here at Randolph AB. The Air Force sure got its money's worth out of the T-38! (I was all set to get a backseat ride in a Laughlin-based T-38 by an old family friend who was an instructor back in the sixties when I was in high school. but my Mom forbid it,  and she outranked my dad, the colonel! Sigh... what a ride that would have been!) The Norwegian and NethAF F-5's were sooo pretty!

Mike

[Terry1954]

I'm back on the case with the F-5E. You may recall that after the great reveal back in March, there was some tidying up to be done from marks left by the blu tac. Well said tidying has now happened, albeit involving some rather fiddly re-masking and re-airbrushing some of the areas. 

 

So at this point I was intending to post a couple of update pictures, but Flickr seems to be playing up at the moment. Will update the pics in a while.

 

Terry

[Shalako]

The colours do look to be right for the scale. 

 

The only thing I have noticed after building this kit a long time ago is that the gun-bay areas are a bit too long thus, making the kit's forward airframe partly out of scale.

 

Nonetheless, back in the good old days the Airfix kit was the only alternative in the specific scale (the other was the Italeri kit).

 

Looking forward to see this kit finished - keep up the good work Terry👍

[Terry1954]

25 minutes ago, Shalako said:

The colours do look to be right for the scale. 

Thanks Shalako. I tried to get them as accurate as possible, and from the pot, the Lifecolour ones look pretty good. I have an excellent book on the IRIAF 2010 by Tom Cooper, Babak Taghvaee and Liam F. Devlin, which is full of excellent colour photos. Will post some comparison pics shortly.

 

So with Flickr now back up and running, here is further limited progress.

 

First some re-masking for another coat of the sand yellow which was badly impacted by the blu tac, but also had some rough edges:

 

 

Things came out OK, so I have given the upper surfaces a very light dusting of Klear mixed with Isopropyl alcohol for some protection. You will notice some of the tan brown areas have some slight redder overspray areas - this is deliberate as some photos show this effect on the real aircraft. Earlier this evening I masked off the rear ready to airbrush the engine areas in various metallic coats. That's the plan for later!

 

 

More soon

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

Further to @Shalako's comment on the colour, my main reference source (apart from the actual FS numbers quoted on the decal sheet I am using) came from the excellent book I mentioned above. The pictures below are taken from the book and are either the authors credits or IRIAF sources. I think you will agree the colours do look pretty close

 

 

And a nice comparison shot with an IRIAF F-4E

 

 

More soon

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

A quick further update. Engine area has been airbrushed first with Alclad Dark Aluminium, followed by a dusting of Alclad Transparent Smoke. Looking better now. The keen eyed should be able to see some vertical "rivet" lines which I added a while back with a pin wheel. I'm hoping they will show up tyowards the end with a subtle wash.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

More soon

 

Terry

[Courageous]

Glad to see that you've found your bench and the F-5. Scheme looks great.

 

Stuart

[Terry1954]

2 hours ago, Courageous said:

and the F-5. Scheme looks great.

Thanks Stuart. Its a scheme I particularly like, and over time I plan an F-4 and and F-14 in the same scheme. I even believe the F-86's in Iranian service wore it towards the end.

 

Terry

[Shalako]

Would be nice to see an F-5E, F-4E and F-14 with the same paint scheme build and set side-by-side Terry as you mention above. 

 

The only thing that I would take care at this stage was to use a very thin layer of the lighter colour sprayed all over to blend the scheme's colours.

 

Personally, I would like to build an IRIAF F-5F (double the cockpit - double the pleasure!!!) in 1/72. However, if you have a look at Ebay you will notice that the aftermarket set that's currently available for improving the Italeri kit is not cheap.

 

 

[Terry1954]

2 hours ago, Shalako said:

The only thing that I would take care at this stage was to use a very thin layer of the lighter colour sprayed all over to blend the scheme's colours.

I might consider that, although I'm pretty pleased with the colours as they are currently, when compared to the photographs I have. I am very much an advocate of some scale colour effects, so I'll do some experiments "off model"!

 

Thanks

 

Terry

[Shalako]

25 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

I am very much an advocate of some scale colour effects, so I'll do some experiments "off model"!

 

Thanks

 

Terry

You're absolutely  right Terry. I forgot to mention this!

 

Better be safe than sorry!👍👍

 

Cheers

 

Bill

[Terry1954]

A bit more work on the F-5 today, mostly prep for some further airbrushing.

 

The nose ready for the radome to be airbrushed on, together with some grey around the rear of the cockpit which needed tidying up after some overspray from the camouflage. Also the four pylons have had their main bodies masked leaving the leading edges clear for a dusting of the camouflage colours.

 

 

Some preparation work on the undercarriage as well:

 

 

Next up will be some subtle underside panel shading before sealing the lot with Klear. I also need to construct a couple of AIM-9P's and source four Mk.82 Snakeyes from somewhere!

 

More soon.

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

A quick session with the airbrush this afternoon for this one and the Gamecock........

 

We now have a blackish nose cone and some pylons with leading edges to match the top scheme. The underside still has the U/C doors (from the closed option in the kit) held in place by blu-tac, to preserve the white internal colour.

 

 

I dug out a pair of AIM-9P's from the Eduard Brassin set I have. They are actually J's in the set, but seem identical in shape/appearance, so these will be painted up to represent live P's.

 

I drew a blank on the Mk.82 Snakeyes so have ordered some Kora resin ones from the big H.

 

More soon

 

Terry

[Terry1954]

So the Kora Mk.82 Snakeyes arrived and I have to say total disappointment. The resin moulding is pretty poor around the bodies with lots of misalignment of the two halves. Am trying to rectify but maybe I have a bad batch. Might have to find alternative Snakeyes, or even a different load out.

 

Meanwhile decals are starting to go on, so some pictures soon.

 

Terry

[Courageous]

1 minute ago, Terry1954 said:

So the Kora Mk.82 Snakeyes arrived and I have to say total disappointment.

Let's see, let's see....

 

Stuart

[Terry1954]

On 6/7/2019 at 3:13 PM, Courageous said:

Let's see, let's see....

OK, there you go..............

 

The red is filler that's been applied, to most of the potholes along the bodies of the bombs, but the bodies themselves are more oval than round, which is another challenge. The fins appear to have been well thought out and detailed on the masters, but quite a few were badly deformed as well. Renovation is underway........

 

 

I don't recall using Kora resin sets before, and these are a disappointing first purchase. 😒

 

At least the AIM-9P's are Eduard Brassin, so no real complaint there!

 

On the F-5 itself, I've been applying some slightly different tones of grey to the underside, to try and get a more realistic look. The real aircraft are grey underneath, but many photos show panel variations and a very weathered look, so i'll be attempting some subtle stuff there with pencils and subtle pin washes.

 

 

The closed nose wheel main door is simply different shade grey. There is no join line there!

 

 

More soon.

 

Terry

[Courageous]

29 minutes ago, Terry1954 said:

another challenge

I see what you mean, best of luck.

As to the undersides, looking great.

 

Stuart

[TheBaron]

Nice thing about missing multiple updates to a friend's thread is the prolonged pleasure of catching up with their progress in a longer read-through.

 

Those colours look most compelling Terry but sorry to see the grievous state of those Kora mouldings. Personally I'd be looking for a refund or replacement at such a shoddy batch. I've no doubt however that you'll bring these around to display quality. 

 

Bravo!