Furball Decals FD72-005: Top Gun Tigers & Talons

Furball Aero Design's 1/72 sheet is for the F-5E/F Tiger II and T-38 Talon. Specifically, those that operated with the Naval Fighter Weapons School or 'Top Gun'. Top Gun planes are particularly popular with modelers thanks to the wide variety of schemes that they carried. Those with sharp eyes will notice that the images state it is 1/48. Well, that is because they are the same in all respects, it is just that the 1/72 sheet is smaller.

This sheet provides a wide variety of these schemes for the large scale modeler. You can see that simply by looking over the twenty two different schemes offered on the cover sheet. Fortunately, there are kits out there by Italeri (also boxed by Testors) for the F-5s and Sword does a nice T-38 in this scale. There are others as well so that list is not comprehensive.

One thing that few people realize is that many of Top Gun's planes carried no national insignia. They were not flown outside the US so it was felt that this addition was not needed.  Since markings on these were minimal at best, the builder can spend most of their efforts on the camouflage scheme. Fortunately, these schemes were well documented and this enables Furball to provide both sides as well as upper and lower camouflage information on each jet. These schemes cover from the mid 1970s until the late 1980s with the latter period being more widely represented. These are not all of the schemes carried, but enough to provide variety.

Note that some of these planes have a 'sharknose' so you will possibly need aftermarket bits to duplicate this. All these details are specified in the extensive color and markings guide that accompanies every Furball decal sheet. An additional selection of serial numbers is provided for those who wish to deviate from what is provided. Thanks to the lack of insignia and the light stenciling done to these planes, you can model them all.

November 2016

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Review sheet courtesy of http://furballaero-design.com. You can get yours now at this link.

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