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Saab J 35A Draken in a different camouflage, Hasegawa 1/48


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This one may look strange, but the camouflage and colours are actually correct!

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The first Drakens were delivered in bare aluminium, but in 1961, Swedish Air Force painted a number of Drakens, Lansens and Tunnans in different patterns of green and blue, to find a substitute for the traditional Swedish camouflage in green with blue-grey undersides. One was even painted blue with green stripes!

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Someone might remember this ones from the old Revell boxart:

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Since this was the first production version, J 35A, a few modifications had to be made. One of them was a slightly different seat (the "normal" seat to the right).

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J 35A-C had shorter air intakes, so the long Hasegawa ones were replaced with short ones from Maestro Models:

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The nose also had to be a bit sharpened due to that early Drakens lacked radar. Scratch-built FOD covers were added to add interest. Also note the different fin tip on the pictures above (from Maestro Models) and that the radome was grey, not black.

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The lack of radar also made the instrument panel quite different (this one also came from Maestro Models).

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The pattern was more simple than on later Drakens...

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...and the underside was painted quite a different - and nice - way:

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A few additions were made to the landing gears. For instance, different wheel sides on the main wheels (also from Maestro Models).

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Thanks for looking!

Edited by Bjorn
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I've always loved the box art and colour scheme of the Revell Draken. And I wasn't even sure if it actually existed!

Great to actually see a model of it now, and some background to the scheme.

Inspirational stuff!

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Thanks, all! :)

very nice!

what did you actually do to the nose (not a radom , no?), is it slimmer?

the new (old style) canopy is from Maestro too I suppose?

:)

The radome is somewhat more pointed. And the old style canopy is from Hasegawa's S 35E/RF-35 edition. However, I once used the Maestro one on another Draken, and it fits very well.

Nice job Bjorn. May I ask what colours you used to paint the camouflage?

I used Gunze colours. It is a bit tricky to get the perfect match, since nobody seems to know how they actually looked like. It differs a lot from different pictures. However, I once read that the green should be a bit less brown than the traditional Swedish green, which is about Gunze 309. So I mixed that one with a more grass green colour (can't remember which). The blue is the same as on later Drakens, I used Gunze 54 Navy Blue mixed with Gunze 55 Midnight Blue.

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  • 1 year later...

Great work all over mate!

Have you find a correct replacement wheel for a 1/72 J35A? Looks like colose to Tunnan,but different diameter?

Also those wheels was only on A?

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