1/48 Hasegawa J-35J Draken Swedish Special

Gallery Article by Burt Gustafson on Dec 17 2010

 

For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos of my Hasegawa 1/48 scale J-35 Draken.

History
As the jet era started, Sweden foresaw the need for a jet fighter that could intercept bombers at high altitude and also successfully engage fighters. Enter the Saab J-35 Draken, a Swedish fighter aircraft manufactured by Saab between 1955 and 1974. The J-35 was an effective supersonic Cold War fighter that was also exported to Austria, Denmark and Finland.

The Draken's design incorporated a distinctive "double-delta" configuration, with one delta wing within another larger delta.  This gave the Draken good high and low speed performance. Propulsion came from a single turbojet engine.  A ram turbine, under the nose, provided emergency power and the engine had a built-in emergency starter unit.

Although not designed to be a dogfighter, the J-35 Draken proved to have good turn capability and was a very capable fighter.  It entered service in 1960 with the Swedish Air Force; 644 Saab Drakens were built for Sweden as well as other European nations.

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Construction
Like most Hasegawa kits, this was a straight forward hassle free kit to build.  Parts fit nicely, requiring very little filling and sanding.  It was an out of the box build all the way. The only difficult parts of the build were the nose gear assembly and the ram turbine, they were a little tricky to put together.

Painting
Paints used for the aircraft model were airbrushed with Model Masters and Floquil enamel paints.  The aircraft model here is painted in the colors of a Special Demonstrator aircraft.  Insignia Yellow for the overall aircraft, landing gears, ram turbo, and wheel wells were painted with Floquil Bright Silver.

Yellow paint is like white paint—difficult to cover.  Sometime ago I read a painting tip on the ARC forum in regards to yellow paint coverage.  The tip suggested priming the model or area to be painted yellow with Floquil Reefer White, then applying the yellow paint.  This is exactly what I did.  I primed the model with a coat of Floquil Reefer White and let it dry for two days.  I then airbrushed the model with a coat of Insignia Yellow—it covered beautifully.

Decals
The decals for this kit were excellent, easily placed on the model and snugged down nicely.

Comments
I chose to build this kit mainly because it was going to be colorful, and it certainly is colorful.  It was a pleasure to build. The parts fit was excellent, the detail was excellent, and the decals were super.  The overall quality of this kit is excellent, typical of a Hasegawa kit.  I was pleased with the finished model.

Burt Gustafson

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Photos and text © by Burt Gustafson