SAAB JAS-39B Gripen ETPS ***FINISHED***

[Whirly]

Hello, just a placeholder for my build which will start a bit later. I have the 1/72 Italeri kit and the Flying Colors Aerodecals tiny sheet for the ETPS logo, hope the box decals will suffice for the standard colour scheme.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Whirly

[Col.]

While grey jets are something of a modern curse when compared to the more colourful and interesting schemes from earlier eras this one does look rather smart with the blue and gold tail  

[trickyrich]

welcome along with the beast of the new era, they are an awesome looking aircraft.

 

sort of a Tiger Meet scheme this would have to be one of the nicer schemes this aircraft wears, glad you've decided to go with it. 

 

Good luck with the build, look forward to following it when you're able to start it.

[Whirly]

Hello, I return after a long time to this thread with some news and due excuses to trickyrich for disappearing after his welcome.

As I hinted in the opening post, my intention was to start the build after completing another project I had on the bench, so we rapidly got to the end of february when suddenly everything went pear-shaped for my modelling plans. Lockdown for COVID-19 started very early in Italy, with all schools closed and most companies activating agile working since the last week of february. This meant being confined at home with wife, son and daughter, all needing a workplace in a somewhat small flat and, to cut it short, little or no chances of modelling.

As time went by I managed to regain some slots for my hobby and I finally started the Gripen a few weeks ago. In the meantime both Hockeyboy76 and Dave Swindell chose the same subject for their build and I followed with interest their progress, there are some useful details to check and they worked as a source of inspiration.

So back to my build: I know I won't finish it in time, but a least the project isn't completely shelved and sooner or later I will have the blue-tailed Gripen on my workbench!

First, the raw materials. Having noted the very average quality of the Italeri kit, a few years ago I grabbed at a model show a Tally-Ho resin set for the -A version.

This is the content of the bag:

and these are the parts layed out in good order.

Preparation of the parts was quite complicated by the big resin stubs.

The main wheelwell was especially hard to eradicate, with generous amounts of resin dust spreading around.

In the end I prevailed!

Removing the unwanted plastic parts was even too easy, like cutting through butter, and some remedial work was needed on the edges.

 

More later...

 

 

[Hockeyboy76]

Good to see you back at the bench @Whirly, looking forward to seeing how you do. 

[reini]

That's some nice bits of resin - good to see the build started, even if at the last days. Have fun

[Dave Swindell]

Nice to see progress on another Blue Tail

[Orso]

Will you use the rear cockpit from the kit? 

Look out for the fit of the left wing: https://www.baecklund.eu/scalemodels/72/39Atips.html

[trickyrich]

glad you could make it back, hopefully everything was ok for you and the family with the lockdown.

 

That's some nice looking resin upgrades you have there.

 

It's perfectly understandable why you haven't been able to do anything to her, so Just see how you go with the build, no need to try and rush it. 

 

Arrrr all that resin dust!!! I feel like jumping in a pile of it and doing resin angels! 

[Col.]

Glad to see you're getting some modelling time again during these strange days

 

7 hours ago, trickyrich said:

Arrrr all that resin dust!!! I feel like jumping in a pile of it and doing resin angels! 

Please excuse Rich but the withdrawal symptoms are kicking in

[Whirly]

Thank you all @Hockeyboy76, @reini and @Dave Swindell !

On 5/2/2020 at 3:21 AM, trickyrich said:

glad you could make it back, hopefully everything was ok for you and the family with the lockdown.

All is ok, thank you.

On 5/2/2020 at 10:18 AM, Col. said:

Please excuse Rich but the withdrawal symptoms are kicking in

We are all in a strange mood 🤪

On 5/2/2020 at 12:47 AM, Orso said:

Will you use the rear cockpit from the kit? 

Look out for the fit of the left wing: https://www.baecklund.eu/scalemodels/72/39Atips.html

Hello Bjorn, I have used both cockpits from the kit, the resin one is not that better and its best part, the avionic pack at the rear, can't be used in the trainer version.

I saw your tips regarding the Italeri kit, really most helpful and I'm also really grateful for the instrument and consoles you provided in this link:

 

As you can see they were promptly installed in both cockpits:

 

 

[Whirly]

Back to the model, I removed the moulded 'fin' between the exhausts behind the cockpit and tried to reshape with small files.

 

then I reinstated the 'fin' with thin plasticard.

 

 

 

[Whirly]

The rear cockpit need some plasticard walls to hid the intake mounting depressions. Don't do like me and use thin and flexible plasticard for this purpose, otherwise it will interphere with the side consoles.

 

 

Front u/c well in place, seems ok but we'll see shortly why not.

 

 

Being intended for the single seat variant, Tally-Ho felt they could make a very deep well. Don't know why, in theory the u/c should be identical. As it is, the instructor would be in a very panoramic place but needing an open cockpit!

 

 

I cut down the wheel well and tried to give a more positive location for the cockpits.

 

 

Ok, now it's better!

 

 

Finally for now the intakes: nasty ejector pins on the inside. promptly removed.

 

 

The parts breakdown is not very clever: the small ridges on the splitter plates make for visible and difficult to treat joints, add the rounded corners and sloppy assembly...

 

 

[Col.]

I'm not sure if the Tally-ho set is giving you more work or making the end result easier to achieve but you certainly seem to be making the best of it  

[trickyrich]

the resin nose wheel bay on my 1/48th Gripen's was almost the same (I have C & D versions), ok with single seater but won't fit with dual!

 

But great progress, the IP looks good.

[Whirly]

@Col. @trickyrich I too have some doubts about the merits of this resin set, but once started you can't go back. It's interesting to know that you found the same problems in 1/48!

 

Back to the cockpit, I added two plynths for the control sticks: the real ones don't get to the floor as depicted by Italeri.

 

 

 

A dry run of the main u/c bay showed a quite good fit.

 

 

So the joint was "spot-welded" with super glue and then flooded with 5 minutes epoxy.

 

 

The result is quite good, even if I think the internal edges shouldn't show up, maybe the resin is a little bit undersized.

 

 

Don't forget the nose weight...

 

 

...and a couple of tabs to aid location of the lower wing part.

 

 

Ok, the fuselage is closed finally!

 

 

[Col.]

Good progress again Whirly

[trickyrich]

after a bit of a fight you're getting there.

 

CMK did the resin for my Gripens, and pretty much with the same issues, though I did have to do some major excavation work on the wings and fuselage to get the resin main wheel wells to fit!

[Whirly]

On 5/6/2020 at 1:51 AM, trickyrich said:

I did have to do some major excavation work on the wings and fuselage to get the resin main wheel wells to fit!

You'll see soon that there's another thing in common with this build!

 

But first I had to do something for the flaps. They are usually deflected when the aircraft is at rest, so some changes are needed.

The breakdown of the wing parts doesn't help, I glued together only  the areas in the red circles to position correctly the two halves.

 

 

then I cut along the red lines to have complete flaps on each side, and finally separated the flaps from the upper wings.

 

 

[Whirly]

And now the u/c wells.

I had to thin substantially both the resin part and the fuselage sides cutting and milling with the motor tool. In the end it more or less fits but I think all this additional work shouldn't be needed...

 

 

 

[exdraken]

Challenging for sure, but nice progress!

[Whirly]

Thank you exdraken!

Really didn't expect so much work, not only for the resin: the Gripen is a small aircraft but with a very complicated shape and many flying surfaces to attend.

 

In the meantime I received a small bag of resin seats I purchased just for this build. It is a set from PJ Production and  I'm not too convinced by the shape and proportions.

On the left you can see the single seat provided by Tally-Ho: it is a monumental armchair, I think really oversized especially in width. In the middle are the kit provided items, very thin and 'generic'. On the right are the PJ seats, nice as they are they seem quite anemic. Anybody already used them? They are item 721210 and can be used in several modern a/c.

 

 

[Col.]

The seat provided by Tally Ho looks like something from a fun park, where you can have a photo taken sitting in an oversized chair that make you look tiny, whereas the PJ ones at least look as if they'll go into the cockpit without fouling the canopy.

[Whirly]

Col., you description is spot on!

[Dave Swindell]

On 08/05/2020 at 21:45, Whirly said:

On the right are the PJ seats, nice as they are they seem quite anemic.

They look pretty good for shape & detail Whirly, but the only way to work out whether they're going to look anemic on the finished model is to do a test fit and see how it fits in the cockpit tub.

I've been looking at the seats for mine, and I think with a bit of remodelling and detailing, plus some of the Eduard etch, the Revell seats will polish up into passable representations.