I'm a big fan of Tiger scheme planes and when my friend Sinuhe Hahn found out about this he knew I had to have the 1/72 Italeri Swiss F-5E in Tiger scheme markings.

My main focus of this review is to showcase the very interesting Tiger scheme decal option in this kit and to touch on a bit of the kit detail with a couple of close-up shots.  

Below is a photo of the 3 sprues that make up this kit. Two sprues in white plastic an done in clear plastic. The canopy comes in 2 pieces and the kit includes a tiny part to make it possible to pose the canopy open without scratch building any parts. This kit does have enlarged LERX and sharknose.

Detail is quite decent on this kit. A good resin seat would improve things......but if you are building this kit with the Tiger option....then the paint scheme will steal the show and a closed canopy wouldn't be all that bad. Having said that....I did find the cockpit decent.....this isn't Black Box detail in the cockpit but it is pretty decent as far as 1/72 goes. The instrument panel even has some needles in the at least one of the gauges. I poked around the cockpit pictures in the ARC walkaround section and there is plenty of detail missing in this cockpit due to the fact the scale is 1/72, but the detail that is present in this kit seems more or less bang on.

Here's a shot of the main wheel wells as well as the airbrakes on the underside directly next to the main gear wells. Detail here is decent as well.

One tiny gripe about this kit is I was to gripe is the raise panel lines. They don't bother me as the option always exists to rescribe if I have a problem with the raised panel lines. The raised panel lines are very fine and delicate and well done so they are hardly a detraction in any way. 

Here's the sweet part of this kit for any Tiger scheme lovers out there. On the left is the Tiger scheme and on the right is the F-5E Aerobatic Team markings for 2002.

The Tiger scheme decals are beautifully complete with even the orange included. All you have to do is paint your model yellow on top and "white" on the bottom and you're ready for decaling. Life doesn't get much easier than that when doing a Tiger scheme.

This kit is available is Switzerland and also in Singapore I've heard, so possibly this kit will have a worldwide availability. If it get retailed in your particular country then there always exists the option of mail ordering it from a country that does retail this kit.
Here is a link to Sinuhe Hahn's 1/32 F-5 in this Tiger scheme. 

  Steve Bamford