I recently picked up a Kangnam 1/32 Northrop F-5E Tiger II model, along with the VLS resin/PE detail set. When I was talking to the dealer about the kit, he said it was a rebox of the Hasegawa kit for a cheaper price. I did notice it was cheaper, but upon opening the box when I got home I realized the kit has raised panel lines. Is this really a Hasegawa mold? Second, the instructions provided by Kangnam contain very bad English and are ver sketchy as to paint colors. The box art shows the a/c in what looks like a natural metal finish, but I have browsed through photos on the internet and can only find a/c painted in some shade of grey or camouflage. Any recommendations on matching a paint scheme to decals would be nice (I’ll probably buy aftermarket decals if they’re available, as the kit-provided ones look like junk). Last but not least, recommendations for the cockpit, gear bays, and gun bays color would be nice. Oh and yeah in case it’s not obvoius I don’t have much knowledge about the F-5 so please bare with my ignorance[V] Thanks in advance!
Hey DDR,
Well Hasegawa kits where not always made with resessed panel lines back in the late 70’s early 80’s they too had the raised detail like most of the old Revellogrms and that Kangnam kits molds is of that vintage (it may have been one of Hasegawa’s old mold they discarded too) but most of Kangnam’s kits are of the old Hasegawa’s kits that where ran in the Pre-Resessed Era,
as for the camouflage a really great book that covers the Aggressor F-5’s is the In Scale & Detail’s F-5’s they cover all the USAF & USN/MC’s camo on the F-5. I don’t know if the book is still for sale but you might find it on EvilBay or at a used book store
Detail shots of an F-5E can be found here on Prime Portal
Some cool shots of camouflaged F-5s can be found here on Fly By Aviation
TwoBobs produced a sheet of 1:32 VFC-13 decals (preview shows the 1:48 sheet. 32-006 has markings for at least one of six different schemes - gray tiger stripe, blue tiger stripe, brown and tan tiger stripe, brown, green and tan tiger stripe, a two-tone desert and three-tone blue). They’re currently out of production, but can be found on eBay from time to time (my set just arrived last week) and could possibly be found in Hobby Shops still.
USAF Aggressors:
USAF Aggressor Schemes can be found at Don Color’s site
Look under 1972 - “Grape,”“Snake,” “Old Lizard,” “Old Ghost”
1980 - “Frog,” “Sand,” “Old Blue”
and scroll down to Aggressor Schemes towards the bottom of the page
with a bit of work it will be ok
you might have to sand down and rescribe a few of the major lines though
Wow as usual I’m amazed at the amount of knowledge you guys have on these aircraft! Thanks a lot for the links and info.
72cuda: Thx for the recommended book; I’ll see if my local library has it.
Trigger: Those are some great links you gave me looks like I’ll get all I need from those websites. Thanks a bunch!
DURR: Now that you mention rescribing, I looked at the kit again, and I noticed there aren’t that many panel lines (compared to, say, an F-15 or some other modern fighter), so I just may try rescribing it. I’ve only tried rescribing on an old Minicraft 1/72 F-15 Eagle, but at the time I only had an X-acto knife and a pen, so I didn’t get off to a good start…
ah I forgot to ask what are the correct paint colors for the cockpit and gun bays of the F-5E? FS color numbers would be great! As I mentioned before the instructions don’t give any good info as to paint colors.