Bestfong 72069: 1/72 Yemeni F-5E
PRICE: |
HK$45.00 |
KIT: |
Various 1/72 F-5E (Italeri, Trumpeter, Airfix..) |
REVIEWER: |
Richard F |
UNITS: |
2 aircraft options |
The Northrop F-5E is well catered for in the decals department - lots of
aftermarket options can be picked up pretty easily.
This sheet covers what I can only imagine is a less well-known scheme -
US-sourced F-5E fighters flown by Taiwanese pilots in the brief war
between what was then North and South Yemen in 1979. Yemen is a single
country now - or we should say "for now", because of course it has been
sadly ripped to pieces by al Qaeda and another political faction, Houthi,
who are dukeing it out in a bloody attempt to take control since the
previous, itself pretty hardline, government fell a few years back.
Back in 79 the North and South were classic Cold War proxy states. The
North was backed by the west, and the South by the Soviets. When their
little Cold War turned hot, the US quickly supplied 12 F-5E fighters to
the north, which had no-one who could fly them. Taiwan stepped in,
providing pilots. While one story said a Taiwanese pilot claimed a
southern MiG, the war was over in a matter of weeks. If only that were
true of Yemenis' present woes.
This decal sheet comes from Bestfong, a Taiwanese (I assume) company
with plenty of other sheets covering a wide range of Taiwanese and other
subjects.
It comes with an A4 sheet in colour with side and top views of two
different aircraft. One has a cool angular camo scheme of light and
middle brown, the other a more normal scheme of the same two browns and
some green. Mr Colour references are provided. The instructions clearly
show where all the decals are meant to go.
The sheet itself is very small, but has quite a few nicely printed small
markings on it, like data labels and ejection seat symbols. The main
national markings are roundels, with the center part printed separately
to put the burden of alignment on you, the builder. It comes with
numbers for two aircraft (one per scheme).
I bought mine from www.kitshobby.com,
a small company in Hong Kong run by a dude named Kit Leung. Because
their website is in Chinese, I wrote to them in my (pretty elementary)
Mandarin. I was pleased to receive, very promptly, a friendly reply in
fluent English. The deal was done over paypal the next day and the
decals arrived from Hong Kong in a few days. I was very pleased with
Kit's service and non-Chinese speakers can feel completely comfortable
dealing with him by email.
References:
Richard F
April 2015If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly, please
contact
me or see other details in the
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