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SAAB J29 E Tunnan 1:72


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I find it totally unacceptable that nobody is going to build my favourite airplane, the J 29.

I guess that I have to do it myself then!

This is by far the prettiest aircraft..........................well maybe not. :-)

But it certainly have personality!

I'm going to do a quick build of the Heller kit. It's old and basic but it's quite good. I should know, I've built ten of these kits over the years...

I'm only going to add a few corrections and detail from the Pavla resin set. If you only going to fix one thing the main wheels would be a must since the Heller ones are horrible. There are new ones available from Quickboost as well but they are no better than the Heller ones! So get the Pavla set instead.

I think I have some leftovers from an etched set from Maestro somewhere. I might use some of that if I can find it...

Here is the kit. Like many of my Swedish Heller kits this came in a bag instead of box.

They were reissued in a small series specially for the Swedish market.

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Unfortunatly the Heller cockpit is wrong. The Pavla set is much better except for the overscale seat. On this build I'm not going to fix anything in the cockpit to save time. I will use the plastic from the kit but detail the seat a little.

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The panels on both sides of the seat should actually be level with the floor. As you can see there is not so much detail here either... Not even decals.

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The main wheels. They are about twice the width that they should be. Plus all the detail is wrong.

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I love the fact that you can build either a J29 fighter with guns or a S29 with cameras. Heller was really nice to give you several options in the box. The small square hole behind the nose gear bay is not present on the real thing and have to be removed.

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Here is the content of the Pavla set. The detail is very good but it will take some work to get the cockpit in. Mine was warped as well. I don't think I will use anything other than the wheels and maybe the canopy on this one.

Time to get the glue out!!!

Andreas

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Andreas I'm glad someone is doing the Barrel, it's one of my favourite jets as well. I also remember building the Heller kit when I was (much) younger (along with their Viggen and Lansen kits). I was lucky enough to get a good look in the Tunnan cockpit at Leuchars air show a couple of years ago, a bit cramped but a great view.

Where do you guys keep finding all these Heller kits or did you just buy a big stash years ago?

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Andreas I'm glad someone is doing the Barrel, it's one of my favourite jets as well. I also remember building the Heller kit when I was (much) younger (along with their Viggen and Lansen kits). I was lucky enough to get a good look in the Tunnan cockpit at Leuchars air show a couple of years ago, a bit cramped but a great view.

Where do you guys keep finding all these Heller kits or did you just buy a big stash years ago?

I have a lot of references of the J29 since I've actually have restored one in full scale...

I work as a volunteer in my spare time at the museum at former F 10 air base in Ängelholm, Sweden.

The J29 is my baby. :pilot:

The Heller kits is very easy to get hold of over here. The owner of my local hobby shop here in Helsingborg is a friend of the Heller management.

He made them do a limited series of the Swedish related subjects just for him. To save costs they are all packaged in bags instead of boxes.

He sells them to other shops and museums in Sweden as well.

Andreas

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I'm not involved with Gul Rudolf since she was moved to another place when the F 10 wing closed down.

This is my plane.

She is known as "Röd Bertil". She is a J29 F (29575) that I converted back to the fighter version after serving as a target tug. She is a static restaration only since she was in a bad shape after standing outside the air force museum for over 30 years as a gate guard. 012.jpg

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