RF-5E TigerEye of the Royal Moroccan Air Force -FINISHED- Pics on Pag. 4

[DogfighterZen]

No success with the photo shoot, guys... i did take a few pics with my wife's cannon DSLR cam but i haven't used it before and didn't get the settings right so the pics came out crappy.
Today i have stuff to do that will keep me busy for most of the day so the pics will have to wait...

[Wardukw]

Nope ..not a good enough excuse mate..learn that camera..YouTube will help ..take epic pics and we will all be happy       
Don't it suck trying to figure out a new camera?? Had the same problem with my Fuji fine pix s ..you'll get there buddy 
Does it have a auto function Zen mate ? That would make your life hell easy .

[DogfighterZen]

RF-5 TigerEye of the Royal Moroccan Air Force

"After liberation from colonial rule in 1956, the country of Morocco  it's independence and reunify. This led to a period of growth and prosperity which would expand in several areas of development of the country.
The Moroccan air force was formed on 14 May 1956 as the Sherifian Royal Aviation (Aviation Royale Chérifienne).
Its modern installations and bases were inherited from France (Meknes, Rabat in tandem with the United States, Marrakech, Kenitra, Ben Guerir, Boulhault, Nouasseur, and Sidi Slimane), and later Spain (Laayoune).
The first aircraft of this newly formed air force were 16 Morane-Saulnier Alcyons, 5 Max Holste MH.1521 Broussard transport aircraft, 1 Aérospatiale Alouette II, and 1 Bell H-13 Sioux.
In 1961, it obtained 12 MiG-17 fighters, two MiG-15UTI trainers and either 2 or 4 Ilyushin Il-28 bombers from the Soviet Union, but these aircraft would be grounded after the Sand war with Algeria in 1963.
It became known that Algeria was receiving support from the USSR during the conflict with Morocco, so the Moroccan government sought assistance from the USA.



The USA officials were contacted in order to obtain new fighters and in January of 1966, an arrangement was approved for 8 MAP supplied F-5A (USD 5m) and 2 F-5A, 2 F-5B and support equipment supplied under credit (USD 6m) to equip one Squadron based at Meknès-Kénitra AB.
First 6 of 15 pilots completed their conversion at Williams AFB in in May 1966 and handover of the first 2 single-seat and 2 double-seaters took place on 27-10-66 in the USA.
AIM-9B Sidewinders were also supplied. A USAF Military Assistance and Advisory Group was also stationed at Meknès to help with the integration and familiarization of these weapon systems in the RMAF.
Delivery was originally planned to be completed in 1966, but by 1967 only the first 3 (4 according to some sources) single-seaters were delivered, followed by another 5 single seat and 1 double-seater received in 1968, although this information differs from what is found in the USAF Historical Office: 4 Northrop F-5A/B were operational in September 1966, with a fifth entering service in June of 1967.



According to an official US list, funding from the Security Assistance Program in FY 1966 was for 1 RF-5A, 2 F-5A, 7 F-5B.
Additional to the first lot of 12 aircraft, 6 new F-5A, 1 former USAF F-5A, 2 RF-5A reconnaissance aircraft and 2 additional F-5B followed till 1971.
Iran supplied 6 F-5A, authorisation given by the US in April 1976, after their air force was re-equipped with F-5Es. Some more single-seaters were bought, according to other sources, 5 F-5A and 2 reconnaissance RF-5A, were also received
from Iran.



The first aircraft were delivered in natural metal colour, which was kept till ca 1973, followed by later deliveries in camouflaged colours. Conversion training of F-5A pilots during mid-70s also took place in Iran.
War in former Spanish Sahara broke out in 1974, when Spain was ready to leave its colony. Morocco occupied two thirds (Northern region) and Mauritania one third (Southern region, around Dakhla) of the country.
Local Polisario Liberation Front, with the help of Algeria, continued its fight for independence after having started fighting against Spain since May 1973.



Fouga Magisters (based at Laayoune) and North American T-6 (based at Ad Dhakla) were initially used for ground forces support, but these were insufficent to combat the heavily armed Front and F-5As were used since 1976.
Several aircraft (probably most of the Squadron) were deployed to Laayoune (formerly El Aiun) to shorten the enormous distance to the operations theater. The initial Moroccan main objective was to create a controlled/safe area around Laayoune, Smara and the phosphate rich field of Bu Craa. At least 5 F-5A were stationed at Laayoune in 1978.



An offer for 20 Northrop F-5E and 4 F-5F Tiger was requested in August 1975 by the Moroccan government to strengthen the ground-attack/air defence capability and a Letter of Offer and Acceptance for the value of USD 120m was submitted to the USA in March 1976. This included training, support equipment and spares, all to be paid by Foreign Military Sales credits. Deliveries could have started in 1977 but the offer was not taken-up, just as was a second Letter of Offer in that same year. Morocco at this point requested the supply of Tigers under the US Military Assistance Plan, which was denied by the USA.
An order was instead placed in 1975 for 30 Dassault Mirage F1.CH (interceptors with ground attack capability), followed by additional 14 Mirage F.1EH and 6 Mirage F.1EH-2000 (fighter-bombers). Deliveries started in February 1978, ending in 1980 and these aircraft became the main ground attack aircraft of the RMAF.



Polisario introduced in its arsenal the SA-7 Strela short-range, shoulder mounted, surface-to-air missile in 1976 to counter Moroccan fighter-bombers, succeeding in shooting down one RF-5A on 21-01-76.
During 1977 and 1978 Freedom Fighters were used in a limited extent; they flew only an average of 100 hours a month.
Use of Freedom Fighters in the Sahara region posed a problem as early USA armament use was limited by the US Arms Control Act, which authorized the use of the weapons only for internal security and self-defence.
Still, during a US congressional hearing in March 1978. the State Department stated that their use was not a "substantial violation" of US law.
This opened the doors for an order of spare parts that were procured from the USA in 1979. A sum of USD 2m for the Northrop F-5 and Lockheed C-130 fleet and ammunition for USD 3.0m, including bombs and rockets.



Finally, after approval in October 1979 by the US government and with the financial help of Saudi Arabia, 16 F-5E, 4 F-5F and 2 RF-5E were ordered at a cost of USD 172m. Another 6 single-seat F-5E ordered by Morocco were not taken-up and transferred to Singapore.
In flight delivery via Canada, Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom of the first 10 F-5E and 4 F-5F started in January and was completed by August 1981.
Aero Maroc Industries was established in October if 1981 at Casablanca to support, overhaul, modify and repair Moroccan military aircraft including Freedom Fighters and Tigers.



To help alleviate the F-5's short range, insufficient to conduct operations deep into the desert, Aero Maroc Industries fitted an F-5B with an in-flight refuelling probe as a prototype installation for operational trials with a newly bought Boeing B.707-138B fitted with Beech hose units at the wingtips for refuelling of the F-5s.
To further reinforce this plan, 2 Lockheed KC-130H were also bought and delivered in the beginning of 1982.
The remaining 6 F-5E, which were newly built aircraft, equipped with in-flight refuelling probes, followed in January 1983. The local aviation company Aero Maroc Industries later installed the probe on most of the remaining aircraft in Morocco.



Only the RF-5E airframes were left out of the program as these were not being used due to lack of qualified pilots and crews to operate these recce dedicated aircraft. The real reason for this was due to a shortage of qualified pilots for the F-5E/F/RF-5E fleet in the RMAF, which was caused by an event that took place much earlier, in 1972. This event was to influence the development of F-5 operations for a long time in this country.
When returning home from a visit to France, King Hassan II's Boeing 727 was attacked by 3 of the 6 RMAF F-5 fighters (5 F-5As and 1 F-5B) that were escorting the king's plane.
The King was not hit and the damaged Boeing managed to land at Rabat where the airport was strafed by the same rebel aircraft. One of these rebel fighters was lost due to fuel shortage, when the pilot tried to escape. Later that day, 4 F-5As strafed the Royal Palace, again without results.
Hussan II was not hurt and a massive purge of Air Force personnel/pilots followed, depleting the ranks of many experienced pilots and ground crews.



During the years that followed, the RMAF's priority was to train new and loyal personnel because with the shortage of experienced crews, most of the best remaining staff were transferred to Mirage F.1 squadrons, leaving almost no qualified personnel in the F-5 squadrons.
Training for the F-5E/F/RF-5Es took around 3 years to give pilots their initial operational capability so it would take quite some time to build up a sufficient number of qualified crews for the RMAF to resume normal combat operations with these squadrons. By 1986, only 6 pilots were qualified for the F-5E variants but were not qualified to operate in areas covered by enemy air defenses like the SA-6 Gainful, employed on the front lines in 1981 by Polisario forces so, most of these new airframes saw very little use during most of the decade.



With the signing of a cease fire by the warring parties in 1988 (something that actually only came into effect in 1991), the fighting would gradually slow down to a halt during the next 3 years.
The RMAF suffered losses of a few F-5 airframes during the Sahara war with the last aircraft, an F-5E, being shot down by Polisario forces in September of 1991 near Tifariti.
The retirement of the RF-5As would begin in 1996, due to a change of the reconnaissance mission's requirements in the digital technology era that was just starting to be implemented in almost every military branch throughout the world and, the obsolescence of the platforms for these new requirements.
The last flight of the RF-5E in service with the RMAF was in July of 1998, right after the upgrade of older F-5A/B airframes to F-5E tiger II standards was finished. The RF-5E airframes were stored to be cannibalized for spare parts for the remaining F-5E/F airframes that were being kept in service."

[DogfighterZen]

So, finally it's all done...  got a break today and all the things i had planned to do all had to be postponed so, i had time for the pics and editing and writing.
I do admit that i didn't write most of the stuff, it was taken from the RMAF's page on the F-5 enthusiast site and simply corrected the typos and syntax, and added the bits pertaining to my model. It was something that i didn't wanna loos too much time with and still, took me quite a while to tune the text up because of constant interruptions... 

Wardukw, you're right, i have to learn how to use the cams but i'll have to study and test them on another occasion.
Had a hard time to get those blurry pics but i just got to a point where i just gave up and didn't wanna loose more time with this matter. One of the things that isn't helping for sure is the lack of decent lighting... and the fact that i don't know how to take decent photos or work with the cameras i have available!
 
Anyway, despite the fact that it took me 17 months to build this, i did enjoy it a lot!
The kit is good, probably not a Tamiya type in regard to the fitment of some parts but, i still think it's a good kit.
Learned some new things and got to practice others a bit more... i guess i could've gone a bit heavier on the weathering with the oils but i didn't wanna thrash the kit so i preferred to play it safe. I think it was a good call cause i now have a bit more experience using the oils and i'm a bit more confident to use them on future builds.
Above all, i can say i'm very happy with how some things came out on this build and not so much with others but, overall, i think it's one of my best builds so far, if not the best... 
I also found it hard to find good info on the Moroccan air force, especially about the RF-5As they used. Couldn't find a date of retirement for the type so i had to use a bit of creative license to twist that bit of history to suit my needs...

Hope you guys like it, if you can see anything properly in the crappy pics, that is...

[Wardukw]

   dude don't beat yourself up ..those are pretty good pics mate ..their clear enough to see without any hassles..ya did pretty good Zen .
Told ya oils can be good once ya get used to em 
Like I said before...I think..im not a big fan of the F5 family..no my type of jet..but when one is build extremely well I don't matter if I don't like the plane ...a bloody good build is a bloody good build   
This is mate 

[DogfighterZen]

  dude don't beat yourself up ..those are pretty good pics mate ..their clear enough to see without any hassles..ya did pretty good Zen .
Told ya oils can be good once ya get used to em 
Like I said before...I think..im not a big fan of the F5 family..no my type of jet..but when one is build extremely well I don't matter if I don't like the plane ...a bloody good build is a bloody good build   
This is mate 

Well, thank you very much, mate! Glad you like the build!
The pics came out worse than some i've managed to take with the same camera in the past but yesterday i just wasn't able to get the results i wanted... i guess i need to study and test this camera more.
But i also need some more light, that's for sure. I had to edit all the pics to brighten them up a bit and sharpen the outlines. And it's something i've managed to avoid with previous pics so i must be doing something different or the camera's settings are too different from when i used it before. This is my wife's cam and she'd been using it recently for an online photography course she took earlier this year so that's probably it, i just have to get the settings back to how they were for previous photo sessions.
Yeah, oils are cool stuff to work with, i enjoyed it and will use them more in the future, that i can say.
Re the F-5 family, i'm sorry you don't like it but that's the beauty of it, right? We all get to choose what we prefer and that's how it's supposed to be.

[NARSES2]

That's come out really well   

[Pellson]

Really nice job, mate!! 

[DogfighterZen]

That's come out really well   

Really nice job, mate!! 

Glad you like the outcome, gentlemen! Thank you! 

[Old Wombat]

Well, all I can say is: "I like it!"

[Wardukw]

  dude don't beat yourself up ..those are pretty good pics mate ..their clear enough to see without any hassles..ya did pretty good Zen .
Told ya oils can be good once ya get used to em 
Like I said before...I think..im not a big fan of the F5 family..no my type of jet..but when one is build extremely well I don't matter if I don't like the plane ...a bloody good build is a bloody good build   
This is mate 

Well, thank you very much, mate! Glad you like the build!
The pics came out worse than some i've managed to take with the same camera in the past but yesterday i just wasn't able to get the results i wanted... i guess i need to study and test this camera more.
But i also need some more light, that's for sure. I had to edit all the pics to brighten them up a bit and sharpen the outlines. And it's something i've managed to avoid with previous pics so i must be doing something different or the camera's settings are too different from when i used it before. This is my wife's cam and she'd been using it recently for an online photography course she took earlier this year so that's probably it, i just have to get the settings back to how they were for previous photo sessions.
Yeah, oils are cool stuff to work with, i enjoyed it and will use them more in the future, that i can say.
Re the F-5 family, i'm sorry you don't like it but that's the beauty of it, right? We all get to choose what we prefer and that's how it's supposed to be.

OH your welcome mate...but yeah the setting would have changed for sure ..wifey would be trying many different things with her course ..my mate Jonno did a similar thing with his super flashy camera..used setting he didn't even know about 
I'll bet when you used it before it was the perfect storm..everything was just right and mate that will never happen again 
Get some cheap desk lamps ..great for extra directional light or rediscover the perfect storm again 
Mate I'm still messing with oils and I've been using them a awhile now and still not close to great with em..it's a time thing learning and I'll get there ..you will to ..but with your build speed it will take you yrs   
No your right man..we all gotta have our own favs with wings ..can you imagine all of us loving the same thing and only that..christ that would be boring.
To be honest there's alot of planes on here I am not a fan off but the quality of the builds is superb and you gotta respect that and there's blokes on here which can out build my arse nine ways from Sunday and I love that.

[DogfighterZen]

Well, all I can say is: "I like it!"

And i say: "Hey , yeah yeah hey, hey..."  ...   hum... no more green stuff for this brother today...

Seriously now, glad you like it, Guy!   

OH your welcome mate...but yeah the setting would have changed for sure ..wifey would be trying many different things with her course ..my mate Jonno did a similar thing with his super flashy camera..used setting he didn't even know about 
I'll bet when you used it before it was the perfect storm..everything was just right and mate that will never happen again 
Get some cheap desk lamps ..great for extra directional light or rediscover the perfect storm again 
Mate I'm still messing with oils and I've been using them a awhile now and still not close to great with em..it's a time thing learning and I'll get there ..you will to ..but with your build speed it will take you yrs   
No your right man..we all gotta have our own favs with wings ..can you imagine all of us loving the same thing and only that..christ that would be boring.
To be honest there's alot of planes on here I am not a fan off but the quality of the builds is superb and you gotta respect that and there's blokes on here which can out build my arse nine ways from Sunday and I love that.

Yeah, she had to go through most of the cam's modes and features so she changed everything i'd set up last time i used it but yesterday i just didn't remember nor did i have the patience to go over everything again. It took a bit to set it up the last time because i took photos to test what i was changing. Still, i didn't get close to understanding how everything works but i did learn something.
It's also something to be practiced and that is something i only do when i grab the cams to take pics of the models...
Anyway, you're totally correct, i have to buy a couple of extra lamps for this but if i'm gonna spend money on that, i'd rather get some photography dedicated lights with filters for the light. I have to wrap napkins around some of the bulbs so they don't cause glaring on the clear parts and any other shiny surface. I have enough crappy lamps as it is so, why not invest just a bit more but get a ready to use, specific type of tool for the job, right? I've been eyeing up a few sets on ebay just to have an idea and a basic setup isn't very expensive.
Regarding the oils... yep, you're right. At this pace, i'll probably die before i learn how to properly use them...

[Wardukw]

I've watched some instructional vids and tried to read info on my own camera and I'm like ..what? ...huh??..hang on ..I do what to get this t..  bugger it im just sticking to what I've got figured out ..they speck in terms I've never heard bout gizmos to reduce this percentage of light to pick up the gaseous heat from a goose fart ..well they might  as well be speaking like that.
What annoys me really is they speck to you like you already know this stuff and not to a person who's a dumb arse when comes to using cameras ie me.
Your wife is clearly smarter than either of us because she remembers the settings .
It's good the light set up you have in mind has a no so nasty price ..I do wonder if there's something on youi tube about making your own on the cheap and how to do it...come to think of it with your build speed..just buy em matey 
You can't do that with oils tho..sorry mate..no buying there ..ya gotta learn   

[DogfighterZen]

Yeah, same thing happened to me watching those vids about the cams...
Patricia is a smart cookie, she knows quite a bit about the cams she owns, and she likes to experiment with them to test their limits.
Re lights, i think LEDs will be the cheapest option and if i build a DIY light setup, that's what i'll use for sure.
I already have a bunch of oil paints of several colors and i believe i have enough variety for what i need but i still have to learn how to properly use them. One thing i found when using them on this build was that oils are simple to use but to get them to do exactly what we want is another story... Still, i found it a very interesting process and will definitely use them more from now on. 

[zenrat]

Nice build mate.

I light my model pics with four led down lights fitted into a piece of thin ply which i mount directly above the model.