Hobby Master Archive

The Northrop F-5 tactical fighter was designed as an extremely maneuverable, supersonic fighter with a high rate of reliability at a low operating cost. The F-5 first flew on July 30, 1959 with the first customer delivery in 1964. The last of more than 2,600 F-5’s was produced in 1989 and about two-thirds of these are still in service with 26 countries more than 4 decades later. The F-5 was manufactured by Northrop Grumman and under license in Canada, Taiwan, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland.

Marine Fighter Training Squadron 401 (VMFT-401 “Snipers”) was activated in March 1986 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona and is the USMC’s only adversary squadron. The USN acquired low hour F-5E/F’s from Switzerland with the USMC obtaining three of these aircraft. They combined the tail and cockpit forward of their own F-5F with the wings and fuselage of the Swiss F-5E’s creating a “Franken- Tiger”. Aircraft 761586 was the first of three to be created. In 2011 762586 was given a paint scheme to mark the 25th Anniversary of VFMT-401.

Specification for the Northrop F-5E/ F-5F Tiger II Number Built - 1,400 + E/F Role F-5F - Two-seat Combat Trainer Version Of The F-5E Tiger II Dimensions Length (F-5E) - 47 feet 4.75 inch (14.65 m) Length (F-5F) - 51 feet 4 inch (15.65 m) Wingspan F-5E & F-5F - 26 ft 8 in Height (F-5E) - 13 feet 4 inch (4.06 m) Height (F-5F) - 13 feet 1.75 inch (4.01 m)

Weight Empty Weight (F-5E) - 9,723 lb (4,410 kg) Empty Weight (F-5F) - 10,576 lb (4,797 kg) Max Take-off Weight (F-5E) - 24,722 lb (11,214 kg) Max Take-off Weight (F-5F) - 25,152 lb (11,409 kg)

Performance Powerplant - 2 x General Electric J85-GE-21B Turbojets With 5,000 lb.s.t. With Afterburning Maximum Speed F-5E - Mach 1.64 @ 36,000 ft Maximum Speed F-5F - Mach 1.55 @ 36,000 ft Range (F-5E) - 1,545 nm (2,863 km) Range (F-5F) - 1,270 nm (2,353 km) Service Ceiling (F-5E) - 51,800 ft (15,780 m) Service Ceiling (F-5F) - 50,800 ft (15,484 m) Max Rate of Climb (F-5E) - 34,500 feet/min Max Rate of Climb (F-5F) - 32,900 feet/min Armament 1 x In-Nose 20mm M39A2 Cannon With 140 Rounds 2 x AIM-9 Sidewinder Missiles On Wing Tips 5 x Pylons Capable Of Carrying Up To 7,000 lbs. Of Ordnance Or Fuel 1 x Under Fuselage Center-line 4 x Under Wing (2/Wing)

1/72 scale pre-finished.

Die-cast metal with a minimum of plastic.

Professionally painted.

All markings are pad applied for superb results.

Crew figure.

Comes with display stand.

Landing gear can be displayed up or down.

Extremely sought after by collectors.

Hobby Master 1/72 Air Power Series HA3324 Northrop F-5F Tiger II 761586, “25th Anniversary VMFT-401 “Snipers” MCAS Yuma, Arizona, Aug 2011