Background

In the mid-fifties, Northrop Corporation started the development of a lower cost, light weight, high performance fighter airplane. The impetus for the program was potential sales to allies under the Military Assistance Program. Initial US interest was in the trainer version of the program. This resulted in the T-38 Talon supersonic trainer. This was a great looking, high performance airplane. I loved watching them fly out of Luke AFB. The initial fighter version, the F-5A followed in the early sixties and had significant commonality with the T-38. This aircraft was sold to various allies and in fact, was built in some of the countries – Canada, Spain and the Netherlands. In the early seventies, the upgraded F-5E was developed.

Eduard continues to expand its Brassin weapons range with this set of Mk. 84 2,000 lb. bomb set. The set includes two bomb bodies with standard low drag fins for normal drops, and three options for the nose – a fuse extender, a standard fuse or a nose cap, and a small photo-etch brass ring for the tail.

As with most US bombs, painting is easy – olive drab overall with a little silver or steel for the fuse. An option not noted in the instructions would be to paint the bomb blue to represent a cement filled training bomb. I left the fuses off until painting was complete so as not to knock them off. I sealed the paint with a nice coat of Future to prepare the bombs for decaling.

For those who want to try something different, Hauler has created a series of accessories that can be used to complement models of different eras and interests. This set is an old fashioned phone booth that was probably modeled after a 1930s English phone booth as the phone included is the old style phone with a hand held cone shaped earpiece with the cone shaped receiver on the front of the phone itself. The kit is composed of 3 resin pieces (floor, roof and phone) and a photo-etch fret with the four sides of the box, the door, a four-sided roof sign, a two part roof decoration, 2 dials, 2 handles and 4 hinges.