Saab A32A Lansen

[Mike]

Saab A32A Lansen

1:48 Tarangus

Following WWII Sweden was looking for a new Strike aircraft to replace their ageing prop driven aircraft. An ambitious requirement was issued, and Saab came up with the Lansen, a large streamlined dual-seat, single engine aircraft with swept wings and tail, powered by a licence built Rolls Royce Avon. Much is made over its visual similarity to the Lockheed Shooting Star, and even to an abandoned Messerschmitt project, the P1110. Although this is just a result of the prevailing aerodynamic research of the time, it doesn’t stop the speculation!

The Lansen project resulted in a well-liked and reliable aircraft that served on the front line from 1955 to the late 70s, and in second line service into the 90s. It was capable of carrying the new (at the time) anti-shipping missiles, as well as the A model having a hefty armament of four Bofors 20mm cannon, mounted behind retractable doors in the nose. It could also carry unguided rocket pods and license produced Sidewinders for A2A combat. Two airframes were kept airworthy by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority until 2010, sampling radiation in the upper atmosphere.

The kit is Tarangus’ first foray into injection styrene moulding, and the kit arrives in a standard sized box with a painting of a green over silver Lansen on the boxtop. Inside is a ziplok bag containing five sprues of a mid-grey styrene, that identifies this release as of the “short run” type. Bagged separately inside the main bag is a small sprue of clear parts, two resin ejection seats, and two decal sheets are loose in the box with the instruction booklet, which is printed on glossy paper, and is very clear and instructive.

Looking at the sprues, there are a number of large protruding ejector pin towers, some or all of which will need to be removed before offering the parts together, especially on the wings. These can be nipped off with a pair of side cutters, and then rough sanded flush where they won’t be seen. There are also a few ejector pin marks in awkward places, such as the floors of the two cockpits and the middle of the main gear bay insert… right in between some ribbed detail. The location of this one could probably be left in truth if you feel the urge, as there is an insert placed over it later, but if you squint, it might just still be visible.

The cockpit is the usual focus of effort for us modellers, and as usual, it’s the first job on the bench, along with the intake trunking, which will need a little work to obtain the finesse of the real thing. I’ll link to just such a solution in the conclusion however, as our own Jonners has begun building his example already. The two cockpit tubs build up from large open-ended “baths”, with the consoles and console detail moulded in. Detail should be good enough for most modellers here, although a little more clutter and detail could have been portrayed, and the super-detailers will doubtless go to town here. The instrument panels have recessed dials, so some Airscale instrument decals would be most helpful here – it’s a shame there weren’t any on the decal sheet.

The resin seats are good, and capture the Heath-Robinson look of early ejection seats, although they’ll need a set of seatbelts for extra realism. Paint call-outs are copious here, using colour names rather than a specific manufacturer’s colour codes. The seats even have clear parts to either side of the headbox, depicting the blast screens preventing debris hitting the pilots in the event of an ejection or bird strike etc. The nose gear bay installs under the cockpit floor, and is made up from separate sides, so that detail can be moulded into each wall. Detail is acceptable here, but additional wiring and detail could doubtless be added if you have the references and the stamina.

Staying with the cockpit briefly, the two-part canopy is supplied in injection moulded clear styrene, and doubtless many vacform-phobic modellers will heave a sigh of relief. Clarity is good, but will almost certainly benefit from a dip in Klear, and you also get a blast screen for the rear cockpit on the small sprue, as well as a glass for the gun-sight, which is surprisingly thin and large.

The fuselage of this surprisingly large aircraft is around 30cm (12”) long, and good surface detail can be seen throughout. A little clean-up of the various apertures will be sensible though, as the mould seams have left them a little ragged, although nothing that a little filing won’t cure. As always, care and test fitting is the name of the game with shorter-run mouldings. Oddly, the instructions show the front half of the fuselage close and the coaming installed right next to the engine exhaust, which is installed in the next step to a still-open fuselage. Don’t fall foul of this little gotcha, and have to prise open the rear of your Lansen! The exhaust is moulded in two halves, with a burner ring at the end, which is moulded well enough for its location, but you may want to sand and fill the seams, as well as perhaps remove the large ejector pins inside. The strange eye-lid style exhaust outlet is a little soft here and there, so check your references if you want to detail it up, or wait until the Maestro Models updates come to market.

The rudder is moulded into the fuselage, but the tail planes are separate parts, as to be expected. They have thick location pins moulded to them, and the corresponding depression in the fuselage will need drilling out. The variable-incidence track marks are scribed into the tail mounting point, so ensure that you place the leading edge between the upper and lower points, to match your intended pose.

Strangely, the instructions then skip to the installation of the nose gear, when there is still a gaping hole in the underside of the fuselage caused by the absence of the wings. The wings are moulded in two separate parts on the underside, with a large butt-joint that leaves you with a seam to fill down the centre. It would be wise to join these parts first, allow them to cure with the main gearbay insert adding extra strength to the join. Again, test fit as you go, and strengthen the join further as you see fit. Whether you put the lower wing on first and then add the upper is entirely up to you, but in order to get the best fit, it is worthwhile exploring both options. If you’re installing the seven pylons on each wing underside, you will need to open up the holes scribed on the outer surface before you do so. The same will be true of the two blade antennae on the upper wings, and the small wing fence slots onto the leading edge.

The landing gear is designed to be posed in the down position, so if in-flight drama is your thing, you will need to do a little minor surgery to button up all of the gear bays. Detail on the struts is adequate for the era, although there is always extra hose detail and data placards that can be added. The tyres are moulded integrally with the hubs, and the main gear wheels are well detailed, but a flat can be sanded in to give a little realistic sag to the tyres if you so wish. The nose gear tyre is moulded as one part, and has four depressions in the recesses of the hub, which should be drilled out, as daylight is supposed to shine through. The bay doors themselves are workman-like tooling, with only basic detail moulded in. Quick reference to the raft of online reference will soon give you the information you need if you want to add something extra here, as the Lansen’s main doors all hang down, even on the static line. The colour call-outs suggest you paint the wheels aluminium, but either because of dirt build-up or otherwise, the majority of wheels are a much darker metallic shade, with only the rim being aluminium. Check your references if you’re unsure.

A few small parts are added during the build, such as a gaggle of intakes on the upper fuselage, the tailbumper to spare the blushes of the over exuberant pilot, and the pitot tube that installs in the starboard wingtip.

Decals are provided on two sheets, with one marked as an addendum, and containing some brighter Swedish roundels and two short white stripes. These are used for the restored aircraft, and are larger than its in-service markings would have been.

From the sheets, you can build one of two airframes:

• 32070 Bll Helge – F17 Kallinge – The restored aircraft
  
• 32177 29 – F15 Soderhamn – 58 Squares for manoeuvres in Autumn 1968
  

Plenty of marking and colour notes are provided with the profiles on the rear page, and line drawings precede them with full plan views and scrap drawings showing the layout of the pylons. The decals are in good register, and thin and appear to have good colour density. The fluorescent yellow squares are particularly eye-boggling, capturing the day-glo colours well, and I understand that a few spares are included, just in case.

Conclusion

From a personal stand-point, this is a kit I have been waiting for, and even considered (foolishly) scratch building a few years back. Tarangus have done a good job overall, with just a few niggles that have already been detailed above, so I won’t re-tread old ground. Notwithstanding the short run nature of the tooling, this is a personable kit that captures the lines of the Lansen well, particularly those difficult flowing lines around the semi-blended intakes. Inclusion of the often carried belly tank is a nice touch, but the complete lack of any ordnance to hang upon those pylons seems a shame, and a little mean. The omission of the Bofors gun ports in the nose is an odd one, which can only be put down to someone plain forgot! You can choose to scribe the doors in using the supplied diagrams as reference, or go the whole hog and show the doors open, scratch building the cannons and their troughs.

This is not a cheap kit. It comes from a country where labour and material costs are high, and it is the first release from a new company, with no back catalogue to support their balance sheet. Correspondingly, the price is high, which might put some off purchasing. That would be a shame, but I hope the kit sells well enough to ensure the production of the next and subsequent kits that may otherwise not see the light of day from more mainstream manufacturers.

Thanks to Jonners for his excellent "from my wallet" in-box review here. Please stop by his build thread too, where he’s super-detailing his Lansen. Finally, there's a Lansen Reference Thread going on in the forums that could well help with your build.

If you're still wavering, here's some inspiration for you:

It starts a bit slow, but give it time.

Review sample courtesy of

[Sten Ekedahl]

You'll find more reviews and plenty of references here: http://www.plasticwarfare.se/2012/01/saab-32-lansen-special/

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

You'll find more reviews and plenty of references here: http://www.plasticwarfare.se/2012/01/saab-32-lansen-special/

Which is a fantastic resource!!

Great review Mike! Your point about the cost of the model is very well made, and something I'd not considered.

Just a note on the seats. The A models were often flown as single seaters, with just a lead aircraft having the back seater in for navigation etc. As the resin seats have the metal harness yoke cast in place - you could add belts etc to the front seat, and leave the back one vanilla to show that its going to be flown singe seated.

Cheers

Jonners

[Antoine]

Many thanks for the review, Mike, and for pointing out Jonner's, which for some reasons unknow to me I missed.

You're talking about the price, but without giving an average, and the Tarangus linky doesn't give any. How about that?

And what are those antiship missile you're talking about?

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

And what are those antiship missile you're talking about?

Hi Antoine - the Missiles are Rb04's, these babies!

http://www.aef.se/Flygvapnet/Bilder/A32A%2...eum%201000p.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RB_04

Mean looking things arent they?

Cheers

Jonners

[Mike]

Thanks for fielding that one Jonners

I've added a link to "Buy It Now" for those interested

[Christer A]

Hi Antoine - the Missiles are Rb04's, these babies!

http://www.aef.se/Flygvapnet/Bilder/A32A%2...eum%201000p.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RB_04

Mean looking things arent they?

Cheers

Jonners

Ah, the Mighty Rb04!

From my time as a conscript mechanic in the Swedish Airforce we learned a thing or two about them.

The wings are largely made out of Beech plywood, making the flight characteristics quite erratic, but that's a great form of self-defence.

It's not designed to penetrate the enemy ship, but to pull up at the last moment detonating above the ship, using "a vastly over-dimensioned warhead" with a directed blast wave to brake the ships keel.

I believe the last ones were fired up in a joint excercise in 1997 or so. Attack Viggens with a pair of Rb04 performed attack runs, and interceptor Viggens tried to intercept and shoot down the missiles with cannon fire.

We saw a lot of giddy pilots that day

Except for the one who returned back with half a Rb04 still hanging, the lower part of the missile had broken of at some point in flight!

Our lieutenants tried to tell us that the Americans were so impressed by this missile that they tried to buy it, since they didn't have anything similar but to no avail. This should have happened sometime during the Vitenam War, when the Swedish-US relations were quite poor...

Anyway, I really hope that Maestro models comes up with a pair of them, but that should not be too hard, since they already got Rb04E for Viggen!

About the cost of the kit: it's designed locally, but toolings and plastic moulding is made by Sword in the Czech Republic.