Sword 1/48 Northrop T-38 Talon |  | Background The Northrop T-38 Talon first flew in April 1959, designed to serve as the high-performance trainer aircraft where student pilots would first experience supersonic flight after successfully transitioning through the Cessna T-41 and Cessna T-37 (in that order). A total of 1,189 T-38s were built, many of which are still in service today. While the T-38A dutifully served as high-performance trainer, it became apparent that the aircraft could serve in a variety of other roles. As the T-38 exhibited similar flight characteristics as the MiG-21 Fishbed, it was drafted into aggressor duty within the USAF Fighter Weapons School and with the US Navy’s Top Gun. Another spin-off variant, the AT-38B was slightly modified to serve as a fighter lead-in trainer giving pilots who’ve been selected for fighters beneficial training in a familiar aircraft before transitioning into their assigned aircraft. Of course NASA has employed the T-38A as their astronaut mount for training, flight test and a variety of other duties. These aircraft carry the familiar white paint job with blue racing stripes down the length of the fuselage. As the T-38 has survived many logistics crises including shortages of landing gear parts and wings, the aircraft has begun a new transformation. The T-38C overhauls the 40-year-old cockpits with state of the art cockpit displays and controls to give the next generations of student pilots an easier transition into the cosmic fighters (F-22, F-35 and beyond) that are entering service as well as the current generation of fighters (F-15, F-16). The Kit  Nobody has released an accurate T-38 in 1/48 scale until now. The closest anyone came was the Fujimi F-5B kit that was relabeled as a T-38 (close, but no cigar). Our wait is now over! As with most Sword kits, this is a beautiful mix of injection-molded parts and beautifully case resin parts that even appear to be plastic.
The plastic parts come on two trees molded in medium gray styrene and featuring nicely scribed details throughout. As you can see, the full-sized tree has the fuselage, wings, and landing gear parts. The smaller second tree carries the lower rear fuselage pan and horizontal stabs. The resin parts are also cast in medium gray and provide two beautiful cockpit tubs, ejection seats, speed brake/main wheel well bay, nose gear well, and various other details. The canopy is a clearly cast three-piece styrene assembly.  Given that the huge cockpit will be the visual focal point of the kit, Sword has provided a beautiful cockpit that rivals the best aftermarket cockpits out there. When you look into your optionally open or closed canopies, all of the right details will be there. The only thing you’ll need to add will be seat belts/harnesses as these were not cast onto the seats.
 There may be a little filling required during assembly to accommodate the resin fuselage plug containing the speed brake and main gear wells as well as the rear styrene fuselage pan. The areas of the lower wing containing the main gear strut wells are also separate pieces that glue into the underside of the wings and this may also require some minor fitting and/or filling to get a smooth blend.
As I mentioned earlier, you can build your T-38 with the canopies open or closed. The landing gear is positioned down though I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to build this kit gear up. The speed brakes are also provided extended. The tailpipe and engine nozzles are realistically provided as separate parts giving a nice impression from behind.  Markings are provided for two examples, a vanilla Air Training Command trainer or a white Holloman AFB-based T-38 used for training.
Many folks will recognize the blue-gray AT-38Bs used at Holloman for fighter lead-in, the all-black T-38s used for crew proficiency as an inexpensive alternative to their primary ‘black jets’, the Top Gun examples and the list goes on. You could buy a dozen of these kits and not have any two aircraft with the same paint scheme. You're on your own for any of these markings, though I suspect one or three of the aftermarket companies will be rolling in on this Talon kit soon. Conclusions My hat is off to Sword for getting us not only the first T-38 in 1/48 scale, but one that will be hard to beat! This kit is a must-have for all modern aircraft modelers! My sincere thanks to Squadron Mail Order for this review sample!
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