This old kit by
Fujimi is a bit of a funny combination. The exterior shape of the CF-5D
(dual in Canadian Forces parlance) is pretty good, but the cockpit detail is
totally lacking. I flew these aircraft more than 20 years ago as part of
my basic fighter pilot course, and I wanted to have one on my shelf. After
looking at the frankly laughable representation of cockpit panels and pilot
figures, I hunted around for help. Thanks Spooky! He sent me an F-5E
model, in the hope that I could salvage some cockpit parts for the front seat,
and I had been thinking of scratch-building a blind-flying hood to cover over
the back cockpit. Somebody with more patience and talent than me could
probably have made it work, but I am sad to say that didn't happen. Look
for the Tiger II model built OOB here on ARC. I ended up taking some of
the Hobbycraft Tutor cockpit parts that were rendered useless to me after using
Wayne Hui's resin set for the Tutor, and using them cut in half to represent
some semblance of cockpit detail - but promise not to look too closely!
Click on
images below to see larger images
The Fujimi pilot figures
were hugely different in size. One guy was a dwarf, and the other
one looked like an NBA player. I used a Hasegawa pilot, plus the
smaller Fujimi guy for this build. I experimented with paint here.
This is the first time I have used buffing metallizer from Humbrol.
You can see it prior to buffing in pic 05. For the funny quasi-metal
paint that "natural metal" CF-5s had, it does a pretty good job.
I have included a pic showing some natural metal jets together for
comparison. The Tutor and CF-104 use Alclad II, while the T-33 uses
Bare Metal Foil. I find all 3 methods provide interesting results,
but I still find natural metal finishes to be very difficult to make look
realistic. My hat is off to those who spend endless hours staining
the bare metal foil, or spraying individual panels with different shades
of metal paint. Maybe when I finally retire, I might have time for
that...
The two CF-5s side
by side contrast the kits from Fujimi (this build) and Classic Airframes (the
camouflaged single). The Classic Airframes jet had a superb cockpit and
very poor airframe detail (missing drag chute cover, poorly fitting wings, etc).
Somebody with more patience and budget (maybe me in a few years) would be well
served to buy a Classic Airframes kit for the resin details, and try to wedge it
all into the Fujimi airframe. Don't know if it would work - the fuselage
sizes look somewhat different to me... In any case, I finished this off
with Leading Edge's excellent Aluminum/Red CF-5 decals, and if I don't look too
closely I can escape into reveries of my first flights in this fun little
training fighter. It was a real handful for me to transition into a jet
that flew 50% faster on final approach than the Tutor (typical approach speeds
about 175 knots), and the biggest eye-opener was getting into a world where
flying the jet was secondary to employing its weapons. Not my proudest
build, but still nice to look at from a reasonable distance.
Dan
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