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MONOGRAM 1:48 NORTHROP F-20 TIGERSHARK
Reviewer:
Michael Johnson
(rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:
5 January 2002
Images supplied by Michael Johnson, more can be found with Testors/Fujimi 1/48
T-38 Talon reviewed elsewhere
The F-20 Tigershark (Northrop original designation was F-5G) was designed, built and tested by the Northrop Corporation in the early 1980's. Three prototypes were built, of which two crashed during sales demonstrations and one now resides at the Los Angeles County Museum of Science. The F-20 was the largest commercial military project ever attempted. Designed for the export market, Northrop invested $ 1.2 billion in the F-20 before the company cancelled it after six years of sales attempts with no customer. The lack of success in sales were due to shifting political sands in Washington and unrelated to the aircraft itself, which was the first to fully exploit the digital electronics revolution and was the most advanced aircraft of its day.
Photo
Credit: Unknown
F-20 Tigershark prototype in its famous publicity livery scheme
Monogram released a 1:48 scale kit of the F20 Tigershark in the early 1980’s. The kit is moulded in dark metallic grey plastic and has fine raised panel lines (Unfortunately most of these were lost during assembly). There is a pair of Sidewinder missiles, a pair of sparrow missiles and an auxiliary centreline fuel tank. The kit also offers the option of raised or lowered air brakes. All parts were for the most cleanly moulded with only a few parting lines to be sanded out; there were few injector pin marks. The only flaw, which revealed itself after painting, was on the right upper wing. Oh well….
The cockpit is classic Monogram, raised instrument panel details, and a superb 4-piece bang seat that rivals an after market resin replacement. A test fit of the cockpit tub to the fuselage resulted in a good positive fit, which boded well for future construction.
Construction started (as usual) with the cockpit, which was painted US medium grey. The instrument panel and side consoles were painted black and dry brushed with light gull grey to bring out the moulded details. Various knobs and levers were painted various colours to add some life to the instrument panels. Whilst all this was drying I cemented some small lead fishing sinkers into the lower forward fuselage half, taking care to ensure that they did not interfere with the upper fuselage half and the twin 20mm cannon barrels. The sinkers were glued into place with a flood of white glue. No way that this bird was going to be a tail sitter!
© Michael Johnson 2002
Cockpit shot of Michael's model
Now the fun began. The fuselage halves are split horizontally with a separate tail section. The cockpit assembly was cemented in to place to the upper fuselage half and then the upper half was joined to the lower. The entire nose portion needed filling and sanding to achieve a good fit. Joining the rear tail assembly to the forward fuselage left a fine join line that only required an application of Gunze Sango Mr Surfacer to remove. The lower join left a large gap near the exhaust nozzle, which needed to be filled and sanded to match the contours of the lower fuselage half. Offering up the intake splitter plates and covers resulted in more major seam filling to achieve a nice smooth fit and correct contours. By the time all the sanding was done, the panel lines were gone. The whole model was then polished with “bare metal foil” plastic polish in preparation for the first coat of paint.
© Michael Johnson 2003
Monogram offers both prototype schemes of the Tigershark. I elected to use the overall metallic grey scheme as frankly, the white and red publicity scheme looked too involved. The instructions indicated the exact shade of metallic grey used, actually a BMW grey. I chose Model Master graphite metallic as the closest match and used a spray can to spray the kit. (In hindsight I wish I had airbrushed the main colour as the paint orange peeled badly and required copious amounts of wet and dry sanding and plastic polish to remove). The nose radome was painted dark sea grey and the anti dazzle panel, matt black. All masking was done with Tamiya’s excellent masking tape.
Photo Credit: Unknown
F-20 Tigershark prototype in the overall metallic grey scheme as chosen by Michael for his project
I tried Model master metallic for the first time with this kit and although they airbrush beautifully, they are very susceptible to handling and do not take masking well at all. More experimentation is needed to achieve better results.
Because the graphite metallic is gloss, no preparation was needed for decaling and although a little thick went on well with no silvering at all. The white lettering was dense and none of the paintwork showed from underneath. Although the aircraft logo below the cockpit sill is blurred somewhat. The airframe was then airbrushed Aeromaster flat clear to tone down the gloss finish, at which point my single action air brush nozzle exploded and nearly ruined the entire model. I am running slowly out of this discontinued clear coat, much to my chagrin, as it imparts a fantastic flat finish to a model.
© Michael Johnson 2003
A frustrating time ensued cementing the undercarriage into position. Monogram are usually very good when it comes to providing adequate locating holes and pegs for undercarriage assemblies but the F-20’s undercarriage required to be butt joined to the wheel well. But in the end all was well and at last the F-20 was sitting on its own legs. At this point I touched up the paintwork, and cemented on the ordinance load out and exhaust nozzle.
At this point I cemented into place the bulky canopy hinge after spending some time making sure that it was square to the fuselage and to the cockpit sills. Connecting the upright opening canopy was an anticlimax as it sat snugly on the complex hinge mechanism and only needed a touch of liquid cement to make the placement permanent.
© Michael Johnson 2003
I used the Internet for my primary research source. The best web sites are listed below;
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/MarkWade/f20top.htm
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/f-20.htm
http://www.military.cz/usa/air/post_war/f5g/f5g_en.htm
© Michael Johnson 2002
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