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This
is my first modeling article. I hope you enjoy the story behind building this
model.
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The Imperial
Iranian Air Force was one of the world’s largest F-5 users, taking delivery of
about 160 F-5Es and Fs from 1974 to 1976. The IIAF Golden Crown Aerobatics Team
chose this type of aircraft, transitioning over from the F-5A around 1975 .
I’ve seen the Golden Crown team perform at airshows, and I know members of the
1977 team personally. Suffice it to say that I’ve always wanted to build a
large scale F5 in IIAF Golden Crown markings.
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In my opinion,
the F-5 is one of the most beautiful aircraft in the world. In the past, I tried
on two separate occasions to build one, but I couldn’t finish them because I
could not find IIAF Golden Crown decals anywhere in the market, and I did not
know how to make my own decals. I’ve since learned how, and I’m very pleased
how they turned out.
CONSTRUCTION
Originally
released in the late 1970s, the 1/32nd Scale Hasegawa F-5 is a fairly
old kit. Despite it’s age, it’s arguably the best F-5 kit in any scale. I
wanted the very best for this project, so I used a Black Box cockpit set, and it
fit perfectly!
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The model went
together very easily with no problems except for the surface. I sanded off the
existing raised detail and rescribed new panel lines. I also fabricated
intake and exhaust covers from scratch. The Farsi text, numbers and the
Golden Crown logo were found at www.iiaf.net.
PAINTING
For the
exterior I used several coats of Testor’s
white paint, both glossy and flat. I used Testor’s liquid cement (!) to thin
my paints. It works better for me.
DECALS
So far, so
good. Everything was going smooth, however, making the
Golden Crown decals was a little bit of a challenge. I had to learn how
to make my own decals. Thanks to an old picture of a
G/C F-5 that I kept for many years, and with the cooperation of my
friends at iiaf.net, I was able to achieve my goal of creating the
decals.
The process
started with enlarging the illustration to 1/32nd scale, which I
accomplished by taking the picture to the copy center and making multiple
copies. Then I started modifying these multiple profiles into 3-dimensional
masks which would accurately fit the compound curves of the model (I would wrap
the masks around the unpainted model to ensure the scallops would match up
without gaps or puckering). These shapes were than laid down on frisket film,
and the appropriate colors were sprayed. The masking was removed, and the
colored shapes were cut out and placed onto a new piece of frisket film. After
several days of masking, painting, cutting and pasting I had a master with all
the text and markings which could be taken to a printer for final printing onto
decal sheet. By the way, the decal sheets were not cheap. In the process, I made
several mistakes. When you make your own decals it requires spraying a lot of
clear coat layers, so it will make the decals strong enough to be cut and
submerged in the water without falling apart. The project was starting to come
to life, slowly.
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Now it was time
to start applying decals onto the model. Oh boy, the model looks great. After
the decaling was done, I added all of the “Fiddly Bits’, like landing gear,
doors, safety pins, yadda, yadda, yadda.
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I’m so
pleased with the final product that I’m starting another one. This time it
will be number 7 airplane, for my friend Maj. F. Nasirkhani, who flew Crown #7.
As I mentioned before, the Farsi text, numbering and crown logo comes from www.iiaf.net.
Without their help, this project would never have left the ground.
I have several
decal sheets of the Golden Crown. If you’d like to find out more about the
IIAF, visit www.iiaf.net, where you can find
some cool pictures and interesting articles.
I’m planning
on building all 7 aircraft. For Photography, I used a SONY CyberShot 3.2
megapixel digital camera, with some of my 1/48th scale models in the
background for ‘Window Dressing”.
Thanks also to
Dave Hansen for help in editing my terrible English.
Fred
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