Bjorn Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 (edited) I am among the happy few to get one of the first small batch of this 10-year awaited little gem. And I can tell you, it was worth waiting for! The kit arrives in a very sturdy box - another box to protect it when sending it by mail is almost unneccesary. The boxart shows an early SK 60A from the mid-70s aerobatics team "Parisgruppen" with the SwAF Pilot School, "Krigsflygskolan", badge on the fin. The kit is molded in the same type of style as the other Pilot Replicas releases, a light grey, pretty hard plastic. The box contains six sprues including one clear. A few parts have a little flash, but nothing that bothers: The canopy is a little thick, but crystal-clear. The cockpit has nice molded sidewalls: Panel lines and rivets are crisp and very nice: The seats have nice details and molded seatbelts, which I guess will be loved by some, not by others. A photo-etch fret is also included. The decal sheet is - as always in PR releases - of excellent quality. It is designed by Moose Republic Decals and printed by Cartograf. It contains markings for four individuals, two NMF and two in the two-tone "Draken"-camouflage, one from the 70s and one from the 80s. The "broken" roundel is for an alternative with a bulge on the upper part of the wing. Just one is needed, but two examples are provided, so you can fail once. I have seen it on a model, and it looks great. However, I doubt that I dare to chose that alternative... The instruction sheet is very nice, with plenty of colour instructions. I will start building this ASAP, I hope to post dry-fitting pictures soon. As mentioned in the Rumourmonger section, this will be available at Pilot Replicas webpage www.pilot-replicas.com in about three weeks. Edited October 13, 2022 by Bjorn 13 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marlin Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 Wow Björn. I must get me one of these when they're released. I can't seen any ordnance so I guess that'll have to be provided by Maestro. I want 15cm rockets and gun pods on mine. Good luck with your build. I'll be sitting here taking notes. /Bosse 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reini78 Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 Finally! now waiting for the Austrian version... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike c Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 I need a couple of these in my stash, thanks for letting us see this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 Wow, great! The wait is finally (nearly) over!! Hope indeed you will start her soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted August 31, 2022 Author Share Posted August 31, 2022 (edited) 14 hours ago, exdraken said: Hope indeed you will start her soon I will. Immediately, actually! Did some dry-fitting yesterday. And I can already tell that this will be a walk in the park. Fit is absolutely brilliant! Edited August 31, 2022 by Bjorn 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exdraken Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 that sounds great indeed! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marlin Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 1 hour ago, Bjorn said: I will. Immediately, actually! Did some dry-fitting yesterday. And I can already tell that this will be a walk in the park. Fit is absolutely brilliant! Excellent news @Bjorn I guess that this first release are just a trainer version. I did go back and looked on the sprue and now I see that there isn't any pylons in the kit either. Is this correct? Not a deal breaker on my part, I'll buy it with or without pylons and ordnance. /Bosse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted August 31, 2022 Author Share Posted August 31, 2022 53 minutes ago, Marlin said: Excellent news @Bjorn I guess that this first release are just a trainer version. I did go back and looked on the sprue and now I see that there isn't any pylons in the kit either. Is this correct? Not a deal breaker on my part, I'll buy it with or without pylons and ordnance. /Bosse That is true, this is just the two-seated trainer version (and not the light attack or 4-seater versions). More releases will follow, probably with pylons at least. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SleeperService Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 Decals for the day-glo. Thank You Pilot Replicas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted September 11, 2022 Author Share Posted September 11, 2022 And here we go! I painted cockpit, there were a few ejection pin marks that I filled, however I think that they would be invisible anyway: The biggest challenge with this kit is probably to find space for the noseweight. There are almost no space at all for the 15 g that are recommended. Later in the build, I added more weight behind the cockpit - much weight was needed, since this is just in front of the main wheel wells. A tip is to glue all air intake and engine parts at the same time, before glueing the body halves together. Fit is good, but doing this at the same time gives the chance to adjust the parts before the glue hardens. Glueing the main parts together is almost trouble-free. Some minor trimming was needed on the wings and the wingtips, but generally fit is excellent. It took less than one hour to glue these parts together - including those on the picture above. The only issue was a small gap where the upper wing part meets the body. But this was solved with a small piece of plastic. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike c Posted September 11, 2022 Share Posted September 11, 2022 Looking very nice indeed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vlamgat9 Posted September 12, 2022 Share Posted September 12, 2022 Cant wait for this to be released! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flarpen Posted September 13, 2022 Share Posted September 13, 2022 11 hours ago, Vlamgat9 said: Cant wait for this to be released! Indeed. I need a couple of this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted September 14, 2022 Author Share Posted September 14, 2022 This one is really fun to build, and the primer showed no problems that was caused by the model (just by the builder...). So I have already started painting. My plan is to wait with the clear parts until after painting, I have not test-fitted them yet, but regarding how good this kit has been so far, I can't imagine that any problems will occur. Especially since the canopy will be open. I will use black base for this one, and started with the pre-shade: 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted September 14, 2022 Share Posted September 14, 2022 It looks like an easy build, just the sort of thing I like. Looking forward to the attack version. John🇺🇦 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted September 28, 2022 Author Share Posted September 28, 2022 Few updates on this one recently... But here it is in full colour and ready for decals. 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted September 29, 2022 Author Share Posted September 29, 2022 (edited) Next step was decals. And there is just one thing to say: They are absolutely brilliant! Perfect in shapes, colour, printing quality, and thin and very easy to work with. There are plenty of rivets on the surface, and they were no problem for the decals. The only tricky thing was to get the thin yellow lines on the wings straight, as mentioned, decals are very thin. There are four decal alternatives. Two early in NMF finish and two in the "Draken-camouflage" colours. One from the 70s from F 21 wing and one from F 5 wing from the 80s, with the typical dayglow markings that were almost a trademark for SwAF SK 60. I decided to go for the dayglow one, but since I have noticed that many Swedish builders are planning to do the same, I chose another individual, F 5-70 instead of F 5-72 that is the alternative in the box. Apart from new digits, this also required a new dayglow marking on the fin, since F 5-72 sported the F 10 "ghost" (it was based on F 10 wing, but kept the F 5 wing marking). Here I used left-over dayglow decals from Pilot Replicas Tunnan, that were almost exactly the same colour ant that were cut to size. The nose dayglow decals are a little wrong, the upper line is horizontal but shall follow the panel line and lean forward a little. This was easily solved just by switching the two decals. The solution was so good that I suspect that these decals have wrong numbers on the instruction sheet. Note that there were two different styles on the "5" digit. So if you are doing like me, buildning another alternative than the one on the decal sheet, check references. A good thing is that in spite of the fact that 72 had the "normal" 5, the odd one are also on the sheet, which was excellent for me since 70 sported this one. Edited September 29, 2022 by Bjorn 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marlin Posted September 29, 2022 Share Posted September 29, 2022 Look Great, /Bosse 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christer A Posted September 29, 2022 Share Posted September 29, 2022 I agree with Bosse. That looks fantastic! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted October 10, 2022 Author Share Posted October 10, 2022 Just a few steps left now. Wash, varnish and weathering is done, getting a proper fit for the windscreen was a little challenge, in fact the only challenge so far on this model. Dry-fitting it showed no problems, but when the instrument panel was attached, there was very little space left. So I would recommend all builders to attach it earlier during the build than I did. (Note that the dayglow fields are not as orange on the model that they look on these photos.) I did the weathering with dry pastels and AK Interactive pencils. Only landing gears and seats left now. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyingdutchman Posted October 10, 2022 Share Posted October 10, 2022 Awesome build Björn. Can't wait to get my hands on this kit! Evert 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bjorn Posted October 13, 2022 Author Share Posted October 13, 2022 (edited) Finished! The main landing gear was a little tricky, but finally I got it right. More pictures in the RFI forum: Edited October 13, 2022 by Bjorn 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biggles87 Posted November 1, 2022 Share Posted November 1, 2022 Superbe! Brings back memories of the Karo AS team at Greenham Common many years ago. John. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PattheCat Posted December 6, 2022 Share Posted December 6, 2022 An extremely nice build. Good to know the kit's quality is on par with their former ones. Thin decals, great. The roundels for the Tunnan were rather thick and really, it was the only very small "downside" of a wonderful kit. This SK 60 is definitely on my Christmas wishlist. I wonder what small wonders Claes holds in his sleeve for next time, later versions I'd bet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now