#Northrop F-5

[nelc]

[all-action-all-picture]

Ring Raiders No. 4, dated 28 October - 10 November 1989. Sky Tiger cover by Ian Kennedy. The 'Sky Tiger' here is a Northrop F-5, the real version was given the name of Tiger II with its F-5F variant. Treasury of British Comics.

[usafphantom2]

HU009376 by manhhai Via Flickr: 2 November, 1965, Arizona, United States --- CF-5 Freedom Fighter aircraft refuel en route to Vietnam. --- Image by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

[nocternalrandomness]

USMC F-5N Tiger II leaving Brown Field, San Diego

[dronescapesvideos]

Two-seat Northrop USAF F-5F Tail No. 00889 with AIM-9J Sidewinders and Mavericks over China Lake, Edwards AFB, Sept. 1976. ➤F-5 VIDEO: https://youtu.be/02ApDJbgyWQ ➤U.S. AIRCRAFT VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/US

[aggieon3]

Kai daughter of RotorCrack and Chief she transforms into a Northrop F-5 I tried to make her in the TFA style

[judgeanon]

Plastic Skies of Betrayal - Model 12: F-5E Tiger II “Area 88″

So this model is a little special. I know I said the same thing about the last one, but while the Raptor build came with a heavy dose of anxiety and frustrations, the next build turned out to be a nice planetary alignment of materials and people all coming together in an incredibly rewarding project. Just like the Raptor, however, talking about it involves talking about other things first. In this case, a late 70s manga that set up camp in my brain months ago and refuses to leave. 

Have you ever heard of AREA 88? If not, you’re about to.

So there’s this plane called the Northrop F-5 Tiger II, which I’d actually never heard about until I played Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. That game famously starts you off in an F-5 and locks you there for the first four or five missions, so I became pretty well-acquainted with this tiny little fighter. Some people might recognize its shape from the original TOP GUN, where it was painted black and used as a stand-in for Russian MiG planes, but on the other side of the Pacific, a lot of people know it best as one of the signature planes of one Shin Kazama.

Shin is the protagonist of AREA 88, a manga by Kaoru Shintani that started all the way in 1979 and ended in 1986, the same year TOP GUN came out. I first heard about it while looking at some model kits, and since I was (and in a lot of ways still am) elbows deep in fighter jets at that time, I started to dig a bit deeper. Three OVAs and half a manga series later, I was absolutely hooked. The air combat is fantastic and the manga pulls a bunch of incredible visual tricks to render it, but it’s the intense melodrama of the characters that really kept me in. It’s a tremendously engaging, compelling and interesting series from every angle. And funny enough, I’d actually seen it once, over a decade ago. Just not as a manga or as an anime.

As it turns out, AREA 88 had a videogame for the SNES that had been brought to the West as “UN SQUADRON”, and I had actually played it back when my computer was so underpowered that all I could play were emulated retro games. Running into the game’s source material again in the midst of a wild craze triggered by another videogame was a strange but fun little return, and along with my growing obsession with said source material, cemented my decision to make my next model AREA 88-themed. And the universe seemed more than happy to provide.

My current favorite hobby shop turned out to have a 1/72 Tiger II model for a very nice price, made by the same company that made the F-16 model I’d built some months ago. To make things even better, it was also the exact same kit I’d already seen a much better hobbyist than me turn into Shin’s plane and upload tons of great reference pics online. All I really needed would be the decals, so I asked the shop’s owner if he could get me in touch with someone who prints customs decals. He obliged, although in the end that wouldn’t be necessary.

The build itself was pretty sweet, although not without its hiccups. There was no family drama to distract me this time nor lingering feelings of guilt. Even money was no longer an object. Feeling more relaxed than usual, I took my time with it, and challenged myself to add a few extra touches. For example, taking the thinnest brush I have, dipping it in red paint and giving the stick a little button,

The other thing I also tried out was, for the first time, primer. Yes, I’m a dummy. Yes, I’m not sure how I got this far without it. But I’d never actually needed primer before until disaster struck and some patches of paint began to fall out of my Raptor model kit. I’m still not sure what caused it exactly, but priming models from now on seemed like the smartest solution. As we say down here, better to prevent than mend.

That said, I don’t think I fully understand this whole priming thing yet. Without an airbrush or a spray can, I just used a brush to coat the kit with it, right off the bottle. I’m not sure if this is a good way to use it but at least it smelled really good. And not in a thick chemical kind of way, just genuinely sweet smell. But anyway...

Painting had to be paused for a moment after I let a friend borrow my white paint, so for a week or so only the Tiger’s tail saw any paint, but once I had everything back things moved pretty quickly. I was a bit worried about the blue part since masking tape and me don’t see eye to eye. Still, it worked out alright, and any imperfections were quickly corrected with a bit more paint. Which is something I really appreciate in model-making: if you mess up, you can usually paint over it. Usually.

Like with the stick, I took the time to paint a few other little details like the position lights. Decals and weathering also worked out pretty well, thanks to HobbyBoss’ decals being really good and the plane itself being really small compared to the last couple ones I’d made.

The other thing I felt quite proud of was my paintjob on the transparent parts. I’d been scared of canopies for so long that a bunch of my first models are still purely transparent there, but thanks to a couple of really comfortable brushes and some experience, I’m feeling far more confident about it nowadays. Plus, I’d fallen in love with this shade of blue, so adding more to the plane was its own reward. And speaking of canopies, another little touch I’ve been adding to the planes since the Raptor is to give the whole thing a coat of matte varnish, but then use gloss for the canopy, giving it a nice shiny finish. Although that led to a moment of anxiety when a drop of varnish went inside the canopy and stayed there, giving it a very ugly thick white curve that I feared was permanent. In the end I went to sleep and woke up to the varnish having completely dried out and disappeared, so that’s a good life lesson: sometimes you just need to sleep things off.

So with that and a combination of black and gray panel liner, the Tiger was done! ... or was it? After all, this wasn’t just any Tiger, this is supposed to be Shin Kazama’s Tiger. It was still missing a couple of very important touches. But for the time being I was pretty damn satisfied with the model, top to bottom.

A couple of weeks passed and I never really got around to contacting the guy I’d been recommended, but then I ran into something interesting: a local hobbyist in our local version of eBay was offering custom display bases for model kits at a pretty affordable price. I’d been thinking about getting or even making a humble display base for pictures and stuff, but when I noticed that he was offering custom touches, an idea came to my mind. And that idea lead to a frankly pretty amazing moment of pure human connection.

So after I got paid, I reached out to the guy and asked about getting a 1/72 base made with some extra touches. First, he asked for a picture of the model I wanted to go on the base, so he could take some measurements. Feeling pretty proud of my work so far, I sent him a picture...

... and I swear, the very first thing he said was, and I quote:

“Oh, is that Shin Kazama’s F-5 from Area 88?���

To which my answer was “Ok, that simplifies matters.”

On top of immediately understanding the assignment, new friend even offered to throw in a little extra: a Shin Kazama scale figurine, free of charge. I said yes, of course, ‘cause momma didn’t raise the kind of fool that says no to free stuff, and also asked if he knew anyone who could help me with the decals. As it turned out, he did know a guy. And the combined efforts of three different people living nearly 400 miles away from each other all came together to make something that makes me incredibly happy.

Like everything else I’ve made so far, it’s not perfect. The tail decal couldn’t be easily printed in transparent paper, so it was printed on blue paper that’s ever so slightly a different shade than the one on the plane. But the results are still more than good enough for me.

In the end, this kit turned out to be a very welcome de-stresser. The difficult parts turned out to be a lot less difficult than it seemed, and the base and decals story is something I know I’ll always talk about with a smile on my face. In a hobby that’s usually pretty solitary, that little bit of long-distance camaraderie went a long way. And left me a very nice base for all future projects.

[alabasteralbatross]

MiG Monday!!

Getting back into doodling some planes. She may just be a Northrop F-5 painted black but she's special TO ME.

[opelman]

Freedom Fighter by Treflyn Lloyd-Roberts Via Flickr: Spanish F-5 23-10, wearing special "70 Years of Training Combat Pilots" tail markings, stands on static display at Fairford at the end of the 2024 Royal International Air Tattoo. Aircraft: Ejército del Aire y del Espacio (Spanish Air and Space Force) Casa/Northrop SF-5M Freedom Fighter AE.9-17/23-10. Location: RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire.

[eyestothe-skies]

F-39E Gripen and Northrop F-5 Tiger II, Brazilian Air Force

Source: Sgt Johnson

[barbariankingdom]

Canadair licensed-built version of the American Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter, primarily for the Canadian Forces.

[nelc]

A fantastic view of a RTAF F-5TH Super "Tigris". In February, #Thailand completed the final phase of modernization of its Northrop F-5 fleet (14 aircraft in total). I must say, the ol'bird looks pristine.

[zilodak]

This is kind of shite, and it's not a sona, but I call her Cloudstrike and she has an f-5 northrop alt

Really tempted to make an autobot-sona

[usafphantom2]

Painting l did in 2017.

Top Gun.

Acrylic on paper 40 x 29cm

usafphantom2: Ah the old MiG-28……

[nocternalrandomness]

Jets on the Clark AFB ramp during Exercise Cope Thunder '84

[dronescapesvideos]

F-5 Freedom Fighter Jet. Northrop Supersonic Light Warbird