Drakens

The SAAB J35 Draken has been on of my favorite aircraft for almost as long as I can remember. 

I was about 8 years old when my Dad go me the Revell 1/72 kit for my birthday. I remember building it all by myself (ok, maybe a little help from Dad) with the wheels up, no paint and I hung it from the ceiling where I believed it stayed until I went to high school.  

I did build the Airfix kit probably 15 or so years later (Austrian markings). When Hasegawa issued theirs, I snapped up one as soon as it hit the shelves! Of course, with a subject so near and dear to my heart, I wanted my modeling skills to improve before I tackled it. In time, I was able to pick up a second kit, but, alas, they languished in the stash for many more years.  

Well, I believe it is finally time to bring these two into the light! Luckily I have an F and J version (actually, you can build an or J from either kit), and since a wanted to do both Swedish AF, my plan is one in the Olive green and blue camo, and the other in the final scheme they wore; grey. 

The burner cans are the same for each... 

Even though I had acquired the Eduard PE set, I was planning on going straight out of the box and simply using the decals for the cockpit details since very little would be visible. Well, one set of the decals apparently got ruined at some point as they disintegrated. So plan B. Looking at the Eduard PE, low and behold, there were two sets of instrument panels and instrument panels.  

The fit is quite good with just a little filling and sanding. Painting the nose wheel takes some finesse in that it is molded into the landing gear. After a dose of Tamiya panel wash, I think they came out pretty good! 

Strangely, Hasagawa instruct you to install 9 grams of nose weight in the F version, but not the J. Since I was using the J instructions, I didn't notice until after everything was closed up. 9 gram isn't all that much, mind you, so to be on the safe side, and managed to hide some lead in the ejection seats. Hopefully that will do the trick. I did break down and buy the Hasegawa missile set since 1/72 Falcon missiles a hard to come by... 

Here is a trick I learned; use foamy ear plugs to mask jet pipes, air intakes, and such. I bought a bag at my pharmacy for about a buck. Should last me a while!  

I am starting to be a fan of priming. I use plan old Tamiya acrylic.  

I painted the lower fuselage with flat aluminum (apparently the paint would burn off of the real aircraft), masked and then did the underside. The J gets light ghost grey, and I used RAF Ocean grey for the F. The Swedes have there own paint and so these colors are an approximation.  

Dark Ghost Grey and Olive Green respectively. Gotta say; not much difference between the Ghost Greys! 

Hasegawa thoughtfully included a 1/72 scale drawing of the camo pattern. I was able to stick the low tack purple tape to the sheet and trace the pattern...  

I little touching up is in the future, but all in all I am happy with the result.  

So here is my attempt at post shading. For the green/blue one, I used lighted and very thinned paint to give a bit of a faded look. For the grey one, I darkened it a bit and pick out the panels. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many more extra bit than I was anticipating... 

Weapons. Swedes like green missiles, I suppose.. 

Painting the silver leading edges. About 2 hours worth of masking... 

....for about 5 minutes of air brushing...(I did screw this up, however. There is a leading edge panel line that I followed, but the real silver leading edge does not follow the panel line and is much thinner. Looking at other builds on line, I am not the only one who has made such an error. Lesson learned for when I build the 48th scale kit! 

So being the masochist that I am, I picked up the Master pitot tube and ADA probes. 

Extremely fine, looking forward to painting them!  

Well, here is the finished product. This kind of crap is why I need to stick to 48th scale! 

All shinny and ready for decals. 

I used the Flying Colors Aerodecals No. SR7210 decals sheet. The fluorescent numbers on the grey "J" look especially nice! They di not look all that bright on the decal sheet, but really popped when I put them on the model. Again, the modeling Gods were smiling on me in that the sheet had full markings for two aircraft including stencils. The option for the "F" was rather boring F 1 Hässlö bird, so I was able to salvage some F 10 Ängelholm marking from the kit sheet.  

 

Using the Tamiya panel line accent for the pin wash. I used the light grey for the top of the "F." 

Underside pin wash using the grey tamiya panel line accent. Not quite as stark as black... 

In reality the panel line on Drakens are not that pronounced. Still, the Hasegawa engraving is quite nice and usually the flat coat and additional weathering will tone it down a bit.  

I used the grey tamiya panel line accent for the whole of the "J." Again, I think the black would be a bit harsh.  

 

Pretty much done.