Jump to content

1/48 Pilot Replicas Saab 105/SK 60 - Finished


Bjorn

Recommended Posts

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.

52321419346_804fdcd475_c.jpg

 

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:

52321730148_69b3f63412_c.jpg

 

52321418311_3c0267606f_c.jpg

 

The canopy is a little thick, but crystal-clear.

52321858370_09d8618062_c.jpg

 

The cockpit has nice molded sidewalls:
 

52320616912_ff0d289333_c.jpg

Panel lines and rivets are crisp and very nice:

52321418421_385d8ec5c6_c.jpg

 

The seats have nice details and molded seatbelts, which I guess will be loved by some, not by others.

52321858365_42c4998489_c.jpg

 

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...

52321730103_a9150fee9d_c.jpg

 

The instruction sheet is very nice, with plenty of colour instructions.

52321839009_a02b646213_c.jpg

 

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 by Bjorn
  • Like 13
  • Thanks 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow Björn. :analintruder:

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 :popcorn: :beer:

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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!

52322909812_11bb9b7846_c.jpg

Edited by Bjorn
  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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? :think:

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

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? :think:

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.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

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:

52349430612_047900db00_c.jpg

 

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.

52349430682_f7fd17e76e_c.jpg

 

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.

 

52350626308_44d0dcb1a9_c.jpg

 

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.

52350382946_1f13b85727_c.jpg

 

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.

 

 

52350700209_3285140381_c.jpg

 

 

  • Like 12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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:

52356906170_54ca201fc3_c.jpg

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

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.

52392029216_aa194efce9_c.jpg

Edited by Bjorn
  • Like 11
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

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.)

52416807972_7a66750bf0_c.jpg

 

I did the weathering with dry pastels and AK Interactive pencils. Only landing gears and seats left now.

52417603709_084efb883d_c.jpg

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Bjorn changed the title to 1/48 Pilot Replicas Saab 105/SK 60 - Finished
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

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.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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 account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...