Hasegawa 1/48 J-35F Draken
By Gary Meinert
See the May 2008 Internet Modeler for the history of the Draken and my first-look review of the kit.
Day Glo Draken
In the 1970s, Swedish Air Force Drakens often wore high-visibility fluorescent red or yellow markings. These markings consisted of a pattern of diamonds on the tail fin and squares in a checkerboard arrangement on the upper wing surface. Squares were also located on the outer main gear doors. There was considerable variation in the fin diamond patterns.
My Draken is a J-35F2 variant of the F10 Wing stationed at Angelholm in 1971, resplendent in its bright yellow markings.
Construction Notes
Building the Hasegawa Draken was more difficult than I thought it would be because the kit's engineering creates numerous fit difficulties. The construction process was significantly slowed by the following:
-The rear fuselage unit, when mated to the main fuselage, produces a nasty step.
-The wing- to- fuselage joint creates a step that has to be smoothed out (likewise with the wing tip-to wing joint).
-The leading edge inserts (parts A8 & A9) are too small and produce steps.
-The air intakes (parts B22 & B23) do not fit well, either.
-A prominent gap is created where the front of the vertical fin joins the fuselage.
-The fit of the IRST unit (parts K1 & K2) to the forward fuselage also leaves a gap.
Improvements
I found that the small dorsal fin (part L12) was too thick for the scale and sanded it down for a more realistic appearance. I did the same with the fins on the drop tanks and the tiny blades on the ram air turbine (part L3). I bent the wing fences so they would better fit the curvature of the wing bottoms. The tiny probe protruding from the leading edge of the vertical fin top (not included in the kit) was also added. I considered scratch-building a canopy jack to support the open canopy, but there was no room to place it behind the seat.
I decided to build the model without adding much aftermarket detail. The ejection seat was the main item needing attention, because it lacks belts. I therefore attached some of the colored seat belt/shoulder harness pieces from Eduard's photoetched metal detail set No. 49417. I also installed the canopy mirrors from this set. The p-e parts are quite effective but take some manipulation to bend and place properly. (This detail set was a review item covered by Chris Banyai- Riepl last year; my thanks to Eduard and Chris).
My initial thought was to arm my Draken with a pair of RB-27 missiles. (These are the radar-guided Falcons with long, tapered noses). Unfortunately, they are not available in the Hasegawa weapons set and proved too difficult to scratch-build or kit-bash from other parts. So, l abandoned that idea.
Paint & Decals
I used Humbrol 175 for the underside blue-grey and Metalizer Aluminum for the bare-metal area on the fuselage bottom. The topside paint colors are Humbrol 77 Dark Blue and Model Master FS34086 Green Drab. Panel lines were accented with pencils (Tempera paint for the bare-metal area). Some light weathering was done with my weathering powders--mostly on the bottom.
The diamonds and squares were made from yellow Pactra Trim Tape. This is a glossy vinyl tape with an adhesive backing. It comes in several pre-cut widths, one of which (3/16 inch) was the right size. I cut the tape into 3/16 inch squares and carefully placed them on the model according to my reference photo. As on the real aircraft, some of the diamonds are clipped off where they meet the leading edge of the tail fin, and the upper group of diamonds is set at an angle to the lower group.
The Hasegawa kit decals contain a fuselage roundel that is too small for my Draken, so I had to find the national markings elsewhere. The Two Bobs Viggen sheet(48-147) was my source for the Swedish roundels, and the Two Bobs Draken Red Dragons sheet (48-182) was my source for the yellow numbers. (I had to cut and splice together decals to create the tail number 60.) Using only the Two Bobs decals gave me consistent colors. I used no Hasegawa decals except for the F10 Wing badges on the tail.
My Draken from 1971 had very few stencils, unlike later aircraft depicted by the Hasegawa and Two Bobs decal sheets. The air intake FARA (danger) warnings were of a completely different style, which I managed to piece together from my decal dungeon. Unfortunately, I was unable to make the old-style no step markings for the top of the air intakes. I was also unable to create the tiny 5-digit serial number for the rear fuselage.
Conclusion
As much as I love the subject, this was only a semi-enjoyable build because of all the fit problems. I would not recommend the Hasegawa Draken for beginners. My chief references for this project were my own color slide collection and the Aerofax Minigraph 12. I was also assisted by IPMS Stockholm regarding color information and a question about the underside markings.