Before I could paint, though, I needed to build. The Monogram F-5F kit is not bad by the standards of its day, but it does need some help. I did not do anything extraordinary, just some basic improvements to the kit. The modifications I made to the kit were as follows:

• The Monogram kit is of an Air Force F-5F. When the Navy got a hold of the aircraft, they modified them for better ACM performance. I made the same changes to the kit. These include:

• Reshaping the nose cone into a "shark's nose".
• Removing the radar scopes from the main instrument panels (Naval F-5's do not carry radar).
• I should have also enlarged the leading edge extensions on the wings, but I learned of this modification too late to incorporate them into the kit.

• I drilled-out the left nose cannon barrel.

• On F-5F's, the right nose "cannon barrel" is actually an avionics intake. I replaced the gun barrel provided in the kit with a small diameter plastic tube and faired this into the nose without leaving a gap around it.

• I added the angle-of-attack vane on the right side of the nose using the etchings provided in the Monogram "high-tech" release of the F-5E.

• I blocked the engine intakes so you could not see through the model.

• I added afterburner interiors to the engine exhausts using plastic tube and the etchings provided in the Monogram "high-tech" release of the F-5E.

• I added anti-sway braces to the centerline weapons pylon.

• I replaced the fins on the centerline fuel tank with .015" sheet styrene. This is still too thick, I know, but any thinner just looked as wrong as the two foot thick fins that come in the kit.

Before I go on, I have to warn you that the markings on the model are not authentic. I guess you can call this an "inspired what-if" scheme.

I wanted to have some more interesting markings than what the real aircraft actually wore, so I fudged some stuff. I also lacked concrete information on the full details of the aircraft when I built the model. The fudging allowed me to move forward on the model and have fun in the process. I will accept full blame for any misleading information that my images create.

Compared to the real aircraft, I changed the following during the painting and finishing process.

• First, while the green and gray areas are roughly in the right places, I ignored the exact demarcations on the real aircraft. I just winged it with scotch tape to define the splinter pattern. The effect of this is that the model has quite a bit more of a zig-zag to the demarcation lines.

• I went on to add national insignia where none existed on the real aircraft and I fudged the camouflage lines to make them run through the national insignia at all four locations.

• I added positive / negative painted NAVY titles where the real aircraft wore only black.

• Lastly, I modified the danger markings around the cockpit to be positive / negative and added more data markings than the real aircraft actually had.

For paints, I used all Testors Model Master enamels. The camouflage is made up of Dark Ghost Gray (F.S.36320) and Dark Green (F.S.34079).

Before painting the camouflage, though, I determined all the locations of the markings where I was going to do positive / negative masking and painted those areas in the colors of the markings. Then I masked off the markings and painted the actual camouflage. I used rub down transfers to mask the lettering and Scotch brand Magic Transparent tape for all the other markings. The national insignia were the hardest to do. When I unmasked everything, the results were what you see in the pictures. This is a simplistic description, but it conveys the idea of how I did it.

It is a "what-if", closely inspired by a real aircraft -- ohh well. I like it, and I had fun building and finishing it. That is really what matters. If I had refused to build the model until I knew all the answers, I might never have built it.

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