OT's Political Tiger ***Finished***

[Old_Tonto]

My subject for this group build will be the Hasegawa 1/72 F-20 Tigershark.


Box contents:







And some decals I may use:


Back story is a work in progress.

I'm away in the lakes this weekend so will be late off the mark (unless I take it with me ).

[celt]

I think this aircraft looks really cool ,look forward to your build.

[Old_Tonto]

Apologies for the lack of progress guys. Just returned from an exhausting trip to the lake district so will get cracking on this straight away.
Back story to follow shortly.

[Old_Tonto]

Backstory:
In the late 70s the Taiwanese Air Force started looking for a fighter aircraft to match improvements made in mainland People's Republic of China (PRC)'s air force. Unfortunately the Carter administration had announced a new military export policy that limited sales of front line designs to countries within NATO, along with Australia and Japan. Consequently South Korea's F-16 order was blocked and Taiwan's plans to upgrade its fighter force was left in disarray.

China considered Taiwan as a rogue province and US support was seen as direct interference in China’s internal affairs.
The Taiwanese were thrown a life line by the election of Ronald Reagan as the President of the United States. He was seen as a fervent anti-communist and was expected to be more supportive than the previous administration. Any hopes of a policy reversal were dashed however when in the spring of 1982, the PRC began threatening to severely downgrade its relationship with the U.S. unless something was done about the arms sales, and some in Beijing were discussing "playing the Soviet card." Thus the United States found itself treading a very thin line between appeasing Beijing and supporting one of its long-time allies in the area.

Once again in January 1983 Taiwan requested 200 F-16 fighters in response to an increase in aggressive incursions by PRC aircraft & ships. Although President Reagan regretted it he once again had to turn down this request. Frustrated Reagan asked the DoD to look into possible solutions. As it happens the DoD were responsible for the F-20 program but had not yet actively tried to sell the aircraft to foreign customers (much to Northrop’s annoyance having invested $1 billion of its own funds on the project!). The F-20 fitted the Taiwanese needs perfectly and Reagan could tell Beijing that he had turned down the Taiwanese request for advanced F-16s and fobbed them of with an upgraded F-5.

To add substance to this line the F-20 quickly reverted back to its original F-5G designation for foreign markets. Taiwan was already producing the F-5E under license and Northrop were willing to negotiate favourable licence production contracts in an attempt to recoup their development costs in the absence of a large domestic order. The Taiwanese were more than happy with the F-5G because it offered:
• 70% more thrust than F-5E.
• Superb take-off & climb performance.
• Built in starter, airborne in less than a minute.
All this made it an ideal point defence interceptor and when a Northrop sales rep let it slip that the Tigershark could be wired to fire AIM-7 Sparrow missiles it was a done deal.

License production was split between Taiwan (fuselage & tail) and South Korea wings. Manufacture of the electronic components including the APG-67 Radar was licensed to Samsung. The GE F404 engines were supplied by General Electric and fitted in Taiwan. This is how the F-5G came into service with the Taiwanese Air Force (as the F-5GT) and eventually 200 examples were built for Taiwan. A year later South Korea ordered over 120 F-5GK aircraft followed shortly by orders from Bahrain (6 + option on a further 18), Singapore ( 80+), Thailand (50), Malaysia (36) and Mexico (18).

Or that is what might have been. Hope you like the story. I now know far too much about US - Taiwan - China relations & the Reagan administration foreign policy.

I have started the cockpit tub and images will follow shortly. Overall it looks like a very nice kit. I'll probably give it a load out of Sparrows and Sidewinders as if on standby for an intercept mission in the colours of the Taiwanese Air Force.

[MarkyM607]

Sounds good to me. Always liked the F-5/F-20 family so will look in on this one.

[Kevan Bailey]

That, OT, is a totally credible story. Politics, eh?

[Old_Tonto]

On with the build. Following the instructions I started with the cockpit tube. I went with a grey colour as eighties jets generally were in the office and the seat got a darker grey with faded olive cushions.



The instrument decals are a little oversized so were trimmed after drying.
Also the big canopy brackets that attach to the rear of the seat look far too high if you follow the instructions. See below:



As soon as the tub was installed in the fuselage my concerns proved well founded so I removed the brackets whilst I joined the fuselage halves together.
Fit is pretty good overall with just a small seam line to remove.



I added a harness made from Tamiya tape and also a couple of yellow ejection handles to give the seat a bit of detail.
I'm not sure much will be visible once the canopy is closed up.

This brings me onto my first problem, a cracked canopy!



Any suggestions on how I might fix this?

[MarkyM607]

Is the canopy anything like the F-5?, that could do. I'll see if I have one spare. I also built this one sometime back and remember the canopy 'arms'. They did/do make the canopy sit very high, so much so that it's clear of the fuselage!.

[DavidWomby]

Nice looking cockpit - how I like them - enough, but not too much, detail.

Oh dear, that canopy's a problem. I don't know of any sure way to fix that. A replacement would be best but you could try superglue to fill the broken area (which looks like it will be painted as part of the frame anyway), clean off any fog from the superglue and then dip in Future which might help hide the crack but I'm not sure how well any of that will work.

If the above didn't look great, you could fill it and then use it as a male mould for vacforming or smashing one.

If it comes to it, you could model it with a cover or tarp over it. Good luck.

David

[iggie]

Great back story, and a good start to the build....apart from the canopy of course, that's a shocker!

[Old_Tonto]

Some progress made this weekend. I got the fuselage close up and wings attached.
No real dramas with just a little filler required.



I have deliberately left the gun bay cover off in case I need to add some weight to the nose.
With that in mind I stuck the undercarriage on:



Not a tail sitter.

I plan to get a coat of primer on tonight.

Having done some research into the kit (yes I know I should have ) it seems that you can't have the canopy closed without surgery so this will now be canopy open.
Now I need to deal with said canopy.

[DavidWomby]

It's a great looking aeroplane. Such a shame it didn't go into production in real life.

Still, it gets to live on in your alternate reality!

David

[fredk]

Coming on speedily.

I would fill the original canopy with milliput, fix the broken area and use it to push/crash mould a replacement. A thinner one might close down as well.

[general rocket]

Looking really good so far.

[Old_Tonto]

Coming on speedily.

I would fill the original canopy with milliput, fix the broken area and use it to push/crash mould a replacement. A thinner one might close down as well.

Nice idea Fed but I don't have crash mould technology. So instead I filled the crack as best I could with Krystel Klear then dipped it in Klear floor polish.
Once the frame was painted it doesn't look too bad. It'll have to do.



Good enough for government work. It may get another coat of Klear yet.

In other news I got the first coat of paint on.



That is Tamiya XF-18 Medium Blue.

More to follow.