This is my first
submission to ARC, after seeing all the talent that's out there I would like to
share a few pictures of my own.
This build is on one
of my absolute favorite aircraft of all time, the SAAB J 35 Draken.
Hasegawa has done a good job capturing the right look of the Draken.
This is the final
version of the Draken, the J 35J, depicted in the air superiority gray on gray
colour scheme.
In fact, this particular aircraft (F10 "39" ser. no. 35539) was the
first Draken to have the gray scheme applied to it.
Aftermarket
details used:
Aires: Wheel Bays #4376
Exhaust Nozzle #4378
Gun Bay #4408
Eduard: Interior Detail set #49417
Exterior Detail set #48597
Bording
Ladder #48598
Quick Boost: Spine Air Intakes #48188
IR-Detector #48187
Maestro Models: Dropped Flaps and Elevons #4808
Turned Brass Pitot Tubes #4805
Click on
images below to see larger images
About the Kit:
It is of the standard Hasegawa quality, it has nice engraved panel lines and an
overall good fit.
Exterior details of the fuselage has little more you could ask fore. Where it
falls short in my opinion is in the cockpit area and wheel wells/landing gear.
But in those places Aires and Eduard comes to the rescue.
The build was pretty straight forward, except for the joint of the rear fuselage
to the main fuselage, which required a lot of sanding and filling to get a
doesn't fit. The joint at the air intakes also required a bit of attention.
Installation of the Aires wheel wells and gun bay needed, as always, a lot of
grinding of the plastic to get them to fit, but it's well worth the effort.
I added some scratchbuilt
hydraulic pipes and wires to the landing gear legs, to
liven things up a bit more.
I also added the
Maestro Models dropped flaps and elevons.
Paint and Decals
After priming and preshading, I painted the two tone gray colours with
Humbrol acrylic paints.
For the natural metal areas I used Alclad 2.
As these birds had a tendency to get very dirty, I gave it a rather heavy wash
with lot of streaks using dry pastels.
I used the kits decals, as they
depict an individual I always wanted to build, and they went on with no
problems.
Everything was then sealed with future and a couple of cotes of matte varnish.
Final Bits
The Rb24J (AIM-9J) Sidewinders were taken from Hasegawas weapon set.
The Rb27 (AIM-26B) Falcons had to be scratchbuilt, as was the A5 Pylons just
outboard of the Rb27's.
In all my reference pictures the J 35J has an empty set of A5 Pylons on the most
outboard positions, so I had to add them to my model.
I also added a few scratchbuilt remove before flight flags.
Conclusion
Except for the minor fit problems, this is a really good model of typical
Hasegawa qualities and was a real pleasure to build. And with the addition of
the aftermarket details it really captures the Draken as it should.
I was really pleased with the outcome of the model, and i will definitely
build more Hasegawa Drakens in the
future.
Johan Elvin
Click on
images below to see larger images
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