Viggen Engine & Tail Section Set (for Esci/Airfix) - 1:48 Maestro Models

[Mike]

Saab Viggen Engine & Tail Section Set (for Esci/Airfix)

1:48 Maestro Models

The venerable Esci/Airfix kit has been around now for many years, and has been overlooked for most of that period for anything other than a cockpit from Neomega. Recently though it has received some long overdue attention, and amongst those kind souls Maestro have released a number of updates that other companies have shied away from.

This set deals with the rear of the aircraft, and is a complete replacement of the fuselage and tail area from forward of the thrust reverse slots. The set arrives in a ziplok bag with a set of black and white instructions, three large pieces of hollow resin, one smaller part, and a bag-within-the-bag containing a two part Photo-Etch (PE) fret.

A simple vertical cut through the fuselage sees the offending parts consigned to the bin, and the large tail section installs in its place. A section of the underside of the fuselage needs to be cut away to accommodate the large exhaust tube, but this is hidden within the wing area, so you don't need to be too careful. The long exhaust is joined with the rear engine face, and the two PE afterburner rings are added before installation. The whole tube will need painting before it is embedded within the fuselage, as access will be limited afterward, so check your references and choose the correct shade of soot. The exhaust should be positioned just short of the back of the reverser slot, leaving a gap of around 2mm for the reversed gases to escape when the reverser bucket engages.

The final part of the set is the top flap of the three-part reverser "cup", which reflects the thrust from the motor out of the reverser slots forwards. When the engine is shut down, the petals fall flat against the exhaust wall, but as time goes by the top one falls down under the force of gravity as the fuel pressure drops. The instructions advise that this can take anything up to a day, so there is no hard-and-fast rule to the correct angle, and you might want to leave a little gap so that you can still see all the nice detail round the burner can.

Conclusion

This set has been around for a little while now, so my review won't set the world alight, especially as there are murmurings of a new tooling from the young Swedish upstarts at Tarangus models in the near(ish) future, the folks that brought you the Saab Lansen in 1:48 for the first time in injected styrene.

The task isn't for the novice, as the old kit is a little fickle and sometimes fits where it touches, so some modelling skills and patience are a pre-requisite for attempting this conversion. If you have a supply of the old Airfix kits in stock and begrudge paying more money for the new kit when it arrives however, this set will bring up the detail to levels previously impossible without some serious work. Couple that with some of the recently available updates and you can still build quite a nice Viggen… and what isn't to love about that giant double-delta beast?

Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of