Austrian Tigers

[Whofan]

At the turn of the 2000's the Drakens operated by the Austrian Air Force were nearing the end of their operational life, and to replace them the Austrian Air Force chose the Eurofighter typhoon.

 

However, these would not be delivered until after the Drakens were withdrawn from service and by happy Coincidence, Switzerland, which had operated a fleet of F-5e tiger II were in the process of downsizing their military operations, and some 12 F-5e's were sold to the Austrians for use in the interim period.

 

The planes bought by the Austrians were kept in the Swiss camouflage schemes, with no alterations save some electronic gear - even the stencils and ID numbers were kept, the only change being replacing 6 Swiss roundels with 4 Austrrian Air force roundels.

 

I'm grateful to IPMS Vienna, who on thier vist to SMW in 2019 brought some IPMS Austria decal packs for the F-5e fleet wich included a large number of incredibly fiddly and small stencils.

 

The Kits used were the Italeri 1/72 kits of Swiss F-5e, which displayed the changes the Swiss made to the basic airframe; extended LERX's, and a new flat nose.

 

I chose to make two examples, to follow the aerial photo of two Austrian F-5e's in the IPMS Austria deca pack booklet.

 

Paints were a mix of Tamiya and Mr Colour, the two grey used in the scheme needed a lot of matching. I still don't think I got the greys quite right. I did however use a technique I've read about on BM, cutting out paper templates from one of the camuflage colours, and raising it just off the model surface with blu tak so the paint spray gets under the edge for a soft demarkation. I was very pleased with the way this went, even if I used slightly too large templates and didn't get enough of the second colour on the model.

 

I also used a Rob Taurus VAC form canopy on J-3065, having lost the entire clear sprue from the kit. I also used the master models gun barrels and pitot head. 

I also used tamiya tape for seatbelts - learnt a good lesson, try and get the right width tpe! The belts I made for one kit look absolutely enormous.

 

Music listened to during the build included Stormwatch by Jethro Tull, Operatic Colouratas and arias by Maria Callas, Best of Boney M, my own CD's burnt with 50 Beatles songs, Bright Magic by Public Service Broadcasting, a best of George Michael, Bat out of Hell by Meatloaf in the final lights and photography stage.

 

The models were essentially painted and finished before Christmas, but I waited untila fter Christmas to re stock my Little lenses lenses, which is why the RFI is up now.

 

Here's the two models together;

 

 

This is J-3065;

 

 

 

If you can see them, there are an awful lot of tiny stencils supplied for the kit and by IPMS Austria! The odd yellow/bown colour for the sidewinders is taken from the photo in the IPMS Austria booklet with the decal pack.

 

 

I chose to use the black/white band decal  for the arrestor hook on both kits;

 

I'm not sure what happened here, but I think I got an excess of canopy glue on the fuselage and didn't notice the mes it made until after I'd painted the kit;

 

 

I truly didn't have the will to sand it all back and start again. As usual, I used Xtracolour gloss varnish for the decal stage, and then Windsor & newton Galleria flat varnish for the final coat.

 

 

You might not want to know how I know the master models pitots are very, very pointed. and sharp. and painful .

 

Although I've made a couple of elementary mistaks on these, I am especially  pleased with how the camouflage turned out, I will use the raised paper template idea again.

 

Onward now to cxomplete the CAC 0 Boomerang I started just before New year.

 

[HOUSTON]

OUTSTANDING job.

She looks STUNNING. 

 

[Vultures1]

Nice pair of Tigers! Well done

[Bertie McBoatface]

Sweet set of aircraft there. Very nicely finished.