Post by mexmarine on Apr 3, 2009 22:49:23 GMT -5
First, the story behind the model:
September, 1988: The relationship between Chile and the United States had reached the highest point in many years, and "Blue Sky", a simulated combat exercise between the two nations takes place off the coast of Chile.
On the American side, the airlanes of the 17th USN Airwing, aboard the USS Independence.
On the Chilean side, Grupo aereo 7 ( 7th Group) compsed by F-5E/F's.
On the first day of simulated combat, Grupo 7 plays the "aggressor" against the F-14's of VF-103 and F-18's of VF-131, and after a series of tactical manouvers, is evident that the American pilots had underestimated their Chilean counterparts, whom later declared that it was relatively easy to shoot down the "Hugh and heavy" F-14's.
For the second day of training, the roles were inverted, the USN is ordered to simulate ground attacks with A-6's from VA-135, escorted by F-18's and F-14's and supported by an E-2C from VAW-125 as ECW.
Soon after the agressors started low altitude manouvers, they were surprised by the chilean F-5's diving from the sides of the hills. This scenario was very familiar and gave the advantage to the Chileans, since they were used to training under 5,000 ft following the contour of the Chilean Andes.
After continous combat, the advantage was almost 2 to 1 in favor of the Chilean airplanes which had managed to shootdown 36 American airplanes against 20 losses of their own.
I guess the moral of the story is never underestimate your enemy.
Now, for the model, I'll be working with the "High Tech" version of the old Monogram F-5E that includes some photo-etch with the help of several references and photos.
The first step, as always with Monogram models, is to re-scribe the panel lines and separate some control surfaces.
September, 1988: The relationship between Chile and the United States had reached the highest point in many years, and "Blue Sky", a simulated combat exercise between the two nations takes place off the coast of Chile.
On the American side, the airlanes of the 17th USN Airwing, aboard the USS Independence.
On the Chilean side, Grupo aereo 7 ( 7th Group) compsed by F-5E/F's.
On the first day of simulated combat, Grupo 7 plays the "aggressor" against the F-14's of VF-103 and F-18's of VF-131, and after a series of tactical manouvers, is evident that the American pilots had underestimated their Chilean counterparts, whom later declared that it was relatively easy to shoot down the "Hugh and heavy" F-14's.
For the second day of training, the roles were inverted, the USN is ordered to simulate ground attacks with A-6's from VA-135, escorted by F-18's and F-14's and supported by an E-2C from VAW-125 as ECW.
Soon after the agressors started low altitude manouvers, they were surprised by the chilean F-5's diving from the sides of the hills. This scenario was very familiar and gave the advantage to the Chileans, since they were used to training under 5,000 ft following the contour of the Chilean Andes.
After continous combat, the advantage was almost 2 to 1 in favor of the Chilean airplanes which had managed to shootdown 36 American airplanes against 20 losses of their own.
I guess the moral of the story is never underestimate your enemy.
Now, for the model, I'll be working with the "High Tech" version of the old Monogram F-5E that includes some photo-etch with the help of several references and photos.
The first step, as always with Monogram models, is to re-scribe the panel lines and separate some control surfaces.