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The concept of maritime surveillance does have something in common with real estate business: Location location location. For Sweden's part, the Baltic sea was/is the thing to keep track of, since the age old enemy lurks on the eastern side. It's no secret that even though we were neutral during the Cold War, EVERYTHING was aimed to meet the aggressor from the east. During the 60:s and 70:s Sweden was prepared for the worst, with most of the entire society adapted for this task. This off course culminated during the 80:s and was more or less dismantled by the millennium... but that's another story. During the hey day in the 70:s and 80:s almost nothing could move undetected in the Baltic sea and the first to check out anything interesting was the Swedish Air Force, primarily the recon units. Those guys worked alone, unarmed with only high speed and extremely low height for protection. Over the Baltic, things could happen... https://theaviationgeekclub.com/in-1985-an-sh-37-viggen-in-reconnaissance-mission-performed-aerobatic-manoeuvres-at-low-altitude-to-shake-off-two-soviet-su-15s-one-of-the-flagons-crashed/ One has also heard the tales from recon Draken pilots that were regularly painted by targeting radars and more than once fired upon, but flew so low that the tracers passed above them. But I guess every military branch all over the world has similar tales But this is supposed to be about the AJSH Viggen. Ok, the Viggen was concieved as a platform aircraft that could fulfill many roles. attack was the primary role, with recon a second and fighter as distant third. This was in the time of Multi-Role aircraft, but in the end is still meant that unique versions was built for each role, since it would've led to too many compromises otherwise. The recon Viggen were split in to variants, the SF (spaning-foto) with it's funky looking camera nose with lots of cameras and the SH (spaning Hav) with its maritime-optimized radar and a podded forward looking camera. Previously all recon versions of Draken and Lansen had removed the radar entirely, but now it was felt that a powerful radar was needed. In theory, a pair of SH & SF Viggen could locate and photograph everything interesting that bobbed about in the sea without support from other sources. In practice, this was not always the case. At the end of the 80:s it was clear that the Viggen successor (JAS39 Gripen) wouldn't come online for quite some time, but it would be a good idea upgrade the existing Viggen fleet to something that would be more modern. Numerous options was looked at, but in the end the budget friendly option was chosen. This basically meant a slightly modified computer, new weapons and possibility to finally use the outer wing stations/pylons for Sidewinders. Hence, AJ/SH/SF became AJS/AJSH/AJSF. This allows for loadouts with 2 RBS15 anti ship missiles, 4 BK90 submunition dispensers, or the last resort options of 6 Rb74 Sidewinder... Still no radar on AJSF37 ! But this is supposed to be about modelling, and not me trying to write a lot of things about Viggen which can be found elsewhere, so let's stick to that. This build will be a bit special though, since I'll mostly work on it during IPMS Club meetings, get-togethers and so on, so this is an even slower project than normal for me. I started it back in August last year, and there's been a few things worked on now and then. But let's start with the model. I got that one quite cheaply and gave away the "Röd Johan" decals right away, since I got this instead: The idea is to do this one: This is actually the first built SH , but in its last days as an AJSH flying at the premier Draken wing F10. Why F10? Why not? Well, I did start the model at F10 (its a museum now) during the F10 Memorial competition while sitting directly underneath an AJSF... So far I've only bought the most needed stuff: And I think I will stop buying more things to it! Besides, there is not much left to get... So, what has happened to the actual plastic? Well, I did join the fuselage together Hollowed the vents on the fuselage Swore a great lot about the poor fit of the intakes And finally separated the forward canard flaps for it's resin blocks and neated them a lot. Those flaps are always deployed on the ground, and cannot be set by the pilot. The flap setting is done by the turn-around crew and depends on the load-out. Why deployed flaps wasn't included in the initial Tarangus/Special Hobby boxing is a mystery...but that should be amended in the new ones IIRC. Also keep in mind that the JA canards look a little bit different compared to all the other Viggens. Now, back to the Tempest