1/72 F-5E Tiger II "Grape" 74-1534 527th Aggressor Sqn. Alconbury AB England 1976-1988

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.

Northrop F-5E Tiger II 74-1534 was delivered to the 527th Tactical Fighter Training and Aggressor Squadron (USAFE) at Alconbury AB, England on May 21 1976 wearing the ‘Grape’ colour scheme. The 527th TFTAS was responsible for training pilots new flying skills or refreshing them by using the F-5E as the aggressor. The 527th TFTAS operated at Alconbury from May 1976 when the first aggressor sortie took place until 1988. On October 19, 1987 74-1534 collided mid-air with an F-16 killing the F-16 pilot. The F-5E pilot managed to safely eject.

Features:

- Die-cast metal with a minimum of plastic.

- Professionally painted.

- All markings are pad applied for superb results.

- Crew figure.

- Comes with display stand.

- Landing gear can be displayed up or down.

- Extremely sought after by collectors.