Hobby Master 1/72 HA3337 Northrop F-5E 74-1534 527th Aggressor Sqn Alconbury AB, England Grape

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 74-1535 c/n R1193 was assigned to the 527th Tactical Fighter Training and Aggressor Squadron (USAFE) at Alconbury AB, England and wore the “Grape” camo 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. In 1989 F5-E 74-1535 was one of four F5-Es delivered to the Tunisian Air Force and was designated as Y.92519/IN.