F-5 Freedom Fighters - W-I-P Part 1

 Just a quick update today.  Back in March I finished a Hasegawa Norwegian F-5 which you can see here.  I was so chuffed with the little guy, that I decided to start on the 2 other F-5s I had in my stash.

They are another ancient (1975) Hasegawa F-5A kit

and an almost as ancient (1991) Matchbox CF-116 (F-5B) kit

These are as I've said - older kits, and have mostly raised panel lines and odd issues like no cockpit - which I was a little surprised at.  The Hasegawa kit comes with a pilot but a very basic chair, while the Matchbox kit has no crew figures and the ejector seats look like comfy Lazy-Boy chairs.  No other cockpit details are provided so I had to make them from scratch.

For the Matchbox kit this included adding such fundamental things as the cockpit floor!

Anyway - their built now and look like this prior to undercoating:

The Matchbox F-5B (two seater) is the white one on the left and it will be painted in Canadian colours and armed with 4 AIM-9 Sidewinders.  I'll be using some very nice looking Hasegawa sidewinders from one of their weapons sets.

The Hasegawa one is in grey - it will be in Dutch colours and armed with 4 AIM-9 Sidewinders, 2 bombs and a central fuel tank.  I like the idea of this one being totally loaded for bear.  Not to far to fly to engage the enemy so it can afford to have every station armed.  I hope the Dutch F-5 to eventually look something like this:

I really like this simple, subtle scheme in the right timeframe for what I'm doing.  All these scheme's come from the 1/48 scale Kinetic Models F-5s plans.

The Canadian one is a bit different.  I don't want to paint it in the standard scheme Canadian Air Force scheme but rather paint it up as an Agressor aircraft, that been drafted straight into action with no time for a repaint.  I have options for this one and am stuggling with which to choose.  Here are the choices:

This is probably my least favourite option

So this is probably the easist one to paint - I do like my greys...

I probably think this one is the coolest - but also likely to be the hardest to paint.

So I'm struggling to decide what to do.  Throw your 2 cents in and help me decide!

Thanks for looking

Richard

Hasegawa Norwegian F-5A(G)

 Well, well, well - once again it's been a while.  It's not like nothing has been going on - but still I've been slack with the blog.  So today I plan to rectify that with a completed model.  The first model of my planned Norwegian force which bizarrely is a Northrop F-5A(G) jet fighter. Just because...

So here it is:

This all started a month or two back when it was a nice day and I had a bit of black paint left in my airbrush so I decided to try something new (with aircraft anyway) which was well beyond my skill level.

So I black attacked a couple of planes I had sitting around with my shakey hands!

Obviously I decided the one that would get actually painted was the plane that required just one colour - the F-5.

So on the next nice day (few and far between here back in January/Feb) I got out my Vallejo Model Air colours and did this

And then added decals

Then I took all the stuff out of the cockpit

And now some fun shots:

Thanks for looking.  Hopefully the next post will be a bit closer than 3 months!

Richard

Progressing my Norwegian project

Over the last couple of years, and especially in the last few months, I've been purchasing the final pieces for my Norwegian project that has been discussed previously here. 

One of the primary reasons I had not pushed my Norwegian project was the lack of a NM135 model.  Recently I've discovered a couple.  One a 3D print file and the other from Hobbyden.  Brian Walsh there has recently produced a NM135, which is a primary component of a 1986 Norwegian  mechanised infantry force.  Hopefully I'll have 4 NM135s coming in the next little while. 

As a result of some commission work I did recently for a friend, I have also been able to get enough troops for a Norwegian platoon, plus a few others. I won't be showing them until they are painted though.

I have a bunch of diecast Leopard 1s and M48A5s so that's the tanks taken care of, with a bit of tinkering.

So what I was missing for my Norwegian's was primarily aircraft.  This has now been resolved:

Obviously the first thing you need is a F-16.  What better than this specific Norwegian F-16A+ by Fujimi.

Next I needed a F-5A Freedom Fighter.  These are relatively hard to find - everywhere you look you can find F-5E which are just not right.  Although this is Hasegawa kit comes with Dutch and Canadian decals, I'll sort out something to make it Norwegian.

The final aircraft I needed was one of these.  Talk about rare as hen's teeth.  Just had to have one of these for my Aerial Forward Observer.  No choppers here pal.  This is an original 1970's Airfix kit.  Only problem is now I feel like I'm being barbaric if I open it up and make it... 

Anyway - that's it for today.  Next update will be another project, where I've actually made some real progress, not just bought stuff.

Thanks

Richard

OK.... So it's become pretty obvious I have a problem...

The other day I was looking through the stash and I started to realise that I had accumulated a fair amount of Cold War aircraft.  It's become a kind of guilty pleasure which should last me for years considering how long it takes me to make and paint aircraft.

Now bear in mind these are just the boxed model kits.  If I've gotten rid of the box for some reason - it didn't make the list.  So no inclusion of a C-130, an A-10 and an A-7, a Starfighter, F-16, MiG-21, Su-25 etc.  None of the made and painted aircraft will be shown either - nor helicopters....

So here we go starting with some general Soviet air support:

And some for my Naval Infantry:

In that case I need some air support for my USMC:

And my Royal Marines need a bit as well:

My BAOR need's some more support:

Something for my Danes:

(I'll use another one of those for my Norwegians), plus one of these:

So that just leaves this:

to be used for either my Americans, Belgians or possibly even Dutch.

Well - looking back I realise my problem isn't so bad.  No problem at all actually - so it makes perfect sense to get that Su-24 afterall, and that Su-22, and probably a couple more F-16s and Tornadoes (for the Germans), a Skyhawk, a Bronco, a F-4G Wild Weasel, and F-4 for the USAFE and one for the Luftwaffe and ..........

So.  No problem at all.

Richard

Matchbox Phantom FG1/FGR2 - Revisited & Completed (Again!)

Well - as I posted last time I've revisited my Matchbox Phantom FG1/FGR2 kit that I "finished" back in December last year.  Back then, Paul Foster commented that the model might pop a bit more if I did the panel lines.  I completely agreed with him, and when the right product came along I decided to have a crack at it.

So here's the original:

And here's the new version

Original

New

Original

New

Original

New

So there we go - all done.  Interested in what you think of the panel lines - particularly on the top of the aircraft.  Too dark?  I'm not sure.  Typing this I just realised that I still need to hit it with a flat coat.  I wonder whether this will tone down the darker panel lines somewhat.

Oh well - I guess it's not finished after all.....  Will any of these projects ever end!!!!!

Richard

Matchbox Phantom FG1/FGR2 - Revisited

Well this is actually a revisit rather than a proper Work-In-Progress.

I try and keep an eye out on new products or procedures that will help my modelling - particularly my aircraft modeling which is not great.  I stumbled across this product...

...and did a bit of investigating, watched a couple of clips on Youtube, and thought I'd give it a go.

So
I re-sprayed my Phantom with an Acrylic Gloss coat, and started to have use the Panel Line Wash:

This is what it looks like when you pin wash the panel lines.  It doesn't take long as the wash flows nicely along the lines when you dot it on a panel line.  I've used the darkest grey wash here as I tried the medium wash and you couldn't see it very well.  I might try the medium on the underside of the plane as it is lighter.

The idea is you pin wash it one, and then use MiG Enamel thinners to carefully wipe it off, leaving the wash in the panel lines.  It takes a bit of effort - and I'm sure the way I'm doing it is not 100% fantastic - but so far I think it looks better.  I should probably have started on a brown or green plane to start with but the Phantom is the plane that needs the effect the most.

Next time I show the Phantom - hopefully it will look significantly better!

Thanks

Richard

Matchbox Phantom FG1/FGR2

Carrying on with my attempts at aircraft, it was time to knock off another old favourite and complete this old Matchbox Phantom I started over 2 years ago.  As always with me and planes, it comes down to the painting - starting with trying to get the right colours.  I think this Phantom has about 4 different spray coats as I attempted to find the right colour.

Anyway - here she is in the livery of 23 Squadron whilst based out on the Falkland Islands:

All-in-all I'm quite pleased with out she came out.  For whatever reason I'm a bit disappointed with the way the canopies look.  I guess the light blue on the light grey doesn't look the same against some of the darker colours, but I can live with it.

Anyway - thanks for looking and welcome to the blog for 2017.

Richard