Hobby Master 1/72 HA3352 Northrop F-5F Tiger II BuNo. 761580, VFC-13 Fighting Saints, Fallon NAS, Nevada, Feb 2011
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.
VFC-13 “Fighting Saints” provide adversary training for the USN and regular squadrons, as well as the USMC, USAF and Canadian forces. F-5F Tiger II “Red 20” was constructed as c/n L 1055 and handed over to the USN as 761580 in 1980. In 1991 the aircraft became the property of the Swiss AF at Payerne. Later the F-5s the USN was using were becoming aged so they acquired some low-hour aircraft from the Swiss. In 2007 this aircraft returned to the U.S.A. and first appeared in USN markings in 2010.