Northrop FA-5K

[Weaver]

Okay, game on!

I hereby undertake to turn this here F-5B kit into a an FA-5K (or "Fask" as it's universally nicknamed)(I've just decided). The Fask is based on the Northrop N-300-A5 study, which was basically an F-5E with shoulder-mounted wings and tailplanes and fuselage-mounted u/c. The advantages of this were that the wing thickness was no longer dependent on the u/c thickness, and the pylons could be more spaced out. On the downside, there was a small drag and weight penalty.

I'm doing it to an F-5B 'cos that's what I've got, and 'cos the way this kit splits the plane up is helpful. backstory is that, with the F-5E addressing the fighter market, Northrop revised the -C/D along N-300 lines to make it a complimentary  strike aircraft; a sort of mini-Jaguar. If all goes well, it may get a laser-nose in support of this. F-5G/H being reserved for the future -5E development, -I/K was the next available pair of designations.





If I get it done early, then colours will be Patchwork World. If not, then Norwegian.

[cthulhu77]

Norwegian splinter camo ?

[Weaver]

An evening's progress:



All taped/bluetacked up, I hasten to add.

"No plan survives contact with the plastic", as The Duke of Wellington would have said if he'd built plastic models, which he didn't.

The original plan to cut simple slots high in the side ofthe intake ducts foundered on the fact that the ducts slope downwards to the nose: they'd have given the wing negative AoA.... Instead the front of the wing slots have to go within the thickness of the duct walls, which are now paper-thin as a result of some very careful cutting.

Found a nice laser pod from a Hind, so that's actually the first thing that's been glued to it. Yes, I know that F-5B nosewheels retract forwards, but this one now retracts backwards, okay? 

The nastiest surprise so far had nothing to do with whiffery: the damn canopy didn't fit. Specifically, the slope at the back edge was way to flat for the cutout in the fuselage. By the time I'd got it to match, the front end had shrunk away from the little solid fairing in front of it, so that's an extra delicate little filling job I didn't need.....

Next, undercarriage......

[Weaver]

Norwegian splinter camo ?

Do you mean their army cammo or the cammo on the Skjold FAC (which looks damn sexy btw)? I can't see any reference to Norway using a splinter cammo on their aircraft: they seem to go for NMF, grey or overall olive green....

[Weaver]

The canopy on both F-5B kits (I've got two) is poo-poo (with an english accent)..... it's got a big internal flaw running the length of it and both of them, bizzarely have a scratch in the same place too. To that end, and because cockpits don't interest me much anyway, I've decided to piant over the rear canopy and make it a Mitsubishi-F1-style single-seater. That actually makes quite a lot of sense, since there isn't much room in a F-5B for a pile of nav/attack black boxes otherwise.

It now has slightly bulged nosewheel doors to make the backwards retraction a bit more credible, and I'm going to droop the nose a little, to make it look more aggressive. U/C is now being nicked from one of my F-5Es, as are it's AIM-9Ps, since they're infinitely better than the misshapen lumps in the Matchbox kit. Spent all day thinking about the u/c arrangement without actually doing anything about it (now you know why I don't finish things), but at least I knocked up a half-decent scratchbuilt laser designator pod while I was at it. Reason? Keeping things Scandinavian, the warload is going to include a pair of Swedish laser-homing "Rb-05Ls" nicked and modified from an Airfix Viggen.

I do actually have a scheme for the u/c now which means I've got to go and glue stuff together now......

[Weaver]

Another genius move by Matchbox: they went to all the trouble of including Norwegian markings, and didn't notice that Norwegian F-5A/Bs, unlike most, have an arrestor hook.... (another thing to rob from the F-5E....)

Speaking of robbing the F-5E, I also nicked it's cockpit, since it's infinitely better than the Matchbox one, and being spacious and under a big canopy, you can really see it. Lots of modification needed to get an F-5E's (basically rear) cockpit to go in the front of an F-5B, but it's done, and looks okay, actually.

[sotoolslinger]

Looking Sweeet, a cool idea ,well executed

[Weaver]

Tried to paint the dashboard using Scooterman's techniques, but I just flatly DON'T have steady enough hands, so I *****d it up royally. Then I realised that the F-5E kit has an instrument decal. Then I found out that my two F-5E kits only have one decal sheet between them.   Since the FA-5K is never going to be brilliant due to it's crappy canopy, I decided to save the decals for the F-5E project, and just closed the fuselage the hell up. I hate all cockpits (always did)......

Anyhow, here's what I did while I should have been doing important stuff, and here's also what happens when you buy a cheap X-acto-clone craft knife that has plastic where metal should be....

The things on the back row are an ECM pod (scratchbuilt from sprue) a laser-targetting pod (turned from sprue in my "Dremel") and an Rb-05L (skillfully nicked). The missile isn't on the u/c tree btw, it's just my bobbins composition...

Can't decide whether to just leave the Rb-05Ls with pruned noses or whether to graft extended ones on....



Here's the fuselage together, in a view intended to show my cunningly bulged bay for the rearwards-retracting u/c. I'm "cheating" by having the main doors close again after extension (as the nosewheel doors do for real), so all I have to do is scribe their outlines.



And here it is with it's nose on. Note the RWR aerial on the fin tip, which I'm reasonably pleased with:

[sotoolslinger]

mmmmm    cool

[cthulhu77]

Not only cool, but very believable !!!!

[Weaver]

Thanks for the kind words guys....

It's an ill wind..... that snapped-off craft knife head turns out to be an excellent putty-applier.....

I've added a little fariing around the nosewheel base to blend the LRMTS unit in with the main nosewheel doors better, which now means I need to make a new nosewheel leg door. I'm contemplating ventral fins (the N-300 drawing has them), which, given my pathological inability to cut two things the same shape, should be "interesting".

[Weaver]

Very little progress last night.....

Took a long lunch in order to go and get supplies from a model shop that turns out to be closed on Mondays, had to work late to make up the long lunch, and then, within the space of an hour, I managed to trip down the staitrs, spill a cup of tea over myself, and stick a craft knife in my thumb.

Sometimes, even someone as dumb as me can read the signs: this is Lady Luck's day off - put down the glue and step AWAY from the styrene.......

[nev]

I always find bloody thumb-prints on my canopy increase my sense of manly self-esteem 

[Weaver]

LOL 

Did manage to get some bits and bobs from another model shop on the way back to work, including a very nice laser-guidance conversion kit for Saab Rb-05 missiles*.




*Cunningly disguised as a set of 1/89th traffic cones, molded in red and white slices so you don't have to paint them: ALWAYS check the railway section......

[Gary]

That looks so neat. Was this a real what if, if such a thing can exist? I wanna watch this one closely! Neato man!