Finnish Saab J35S Draken

[reini]

 

I have a Draken! It's the Hasegawa 1/72 - rather nice looking kit. Some light reference material too. I have a proper book about Finnish Drakens too (I think) - I just need to find it. My hobby room is a mess at the moment due to some renovation.

 

 

Plastic parts.

 

 

 

I will be doing DK-215 which is 35S variant.

 

DK-215 is the same plane which flew the Draken's final flight in Finland in a rather striking yellow scheme with a big european bison painted on top. But I will be doing it in normal service era camo.

 

 

 

Some aftermarket stuff - PE inside the cockpit, pitot tube and a resin seat.

 

[vppelt68]

Welcome 🙂

 

[luis pacheco]

Great.

 

I was in Ilmavoimat museum in 2019. Amazing dioramas and models

[reini]

Okay, I dug out my Draken reference material:

 

 

 

 

Found few good reference pictures...

 

 

 

.. such as this one. Nice detail is the unpainted tail section that must have been changed during maintenance. Cool detail is also the gun which is located in the wing on a Draken. The panel is open on the wing leading edge and the gun port can be seen bit front of that.

 

 

But I think this is the winner. I like the really weathered light shades of the paint - and a cool detail is the much darker freshly painted tail section. DK-215 didn't seem to have the IR sensor under the chin but has the big flat (kinda like t-shaped) antenna on front of the small shark fin antenna.

 

Weird thing is that the two pictures above are unrelated tail issues - as the top one is taken sometime around 1990's. I haven't really delved into operational history of the Draken but that would suggest that tail strikes were not uncommon - despite the tail wheel. With the Draken you would wing brake with your nose up during landing. And during take off pulling up too hard after wheels up could cause a tail strike too. In the same book there is a pic of a Draken with it's external fuel tanks leaking after just a such a take off incident. This requires some more research...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[reini]

16 hours ago, luis pacheco said:

Great.

 

I was in Ilmavoimat museum in 2019. Amazing dioramas and models

 

That is a great museum. Has some one of a kind planes such as the Brewster Buffalo (until 2024 atleast).

 

Did you take a seat in the Draken cockpit while you were there?

[reini]

16 hours ago, vppelt68 said:

Welcome 🙂

 

 

Thanks!  That particular Draken has been in my stash for a long time and I can't believe I haven't build any Draken's yet. Been a while since my last Finnish subject too so it all works out well now with the GB too and all

 

[AdrianMF]

Sorry, I thought this was the chat thread! Post has been moved...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[vppelt68]

I solved the too-big-box-issue by buying another H2K Draken kit... 😉

 

[AdrianMF]

The blue and grey Finnish scheme is a cracker. I'm looking forward to seeing how your PE works out.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[luis pacheco]

On 3/5/2023 at 12:59 PM, reini said:

Did you take a seat in the Draken cockpit while you were there?

I was on the Mig-21bis. 

[AaCee26]

On 3/5/2023 at 3:57 PM, reini said:

Okay, I dug out my Draken reference mater

Gun which is located in the wing on a Draken. The panel

 

But I think this is the winner. I like the really weathered light shades of the paint - and a cool detail is the much darker freshly painted tail section. DK-215 didn't seem to have the IR sensor under the chin but has the big flat (kinda like t-shaped) antenna on front of the small shark fin antenna.

 

Weird thing is that the two pictures above are unrelated tail issues - as the top one is taken sometime around 1990's.

Hi,

 

During exercises gun panel was opened when the Drakens were in QRA.

 

Winter picture has the spear aerial removed and replaced with a light panel on the spine. Later they were re-painted dark.

 

Silver rear-fuselage is a couple of years older picture than the taxying one. That explains the fresh painting of it in a faded airframe.

 

Cheers,

 

AaCee 

 

 

[reini]

14 hours ago, AaCee26 said:

Silver rear-fuselage is a couple of years older picture than the taxying one. That explains the fresh painting of it in a faded airframe.

Thanks for the info. Silver tail photo is said to be taken around 1990 - and the fresh tail 1984. According to thr book atleast. So it seems DK-215 might have had multiple tails during its career. 

[AaCee26]

On 3/10/2023 at 1:52 PM, reini said:

 Silver tail photo is said to be taken around 1990 - and the fresh tail 1984. According to thr book atleast.

Hi,

 

I'm now away from my books so take with care what I write. Draken is one of my favorite types so I have quite a lot of material of it which I have studied. I'm hoping to built some day the missing BS, CS and FS for my collection.

 

Looks like there is wrong date for the unpainted rear fuselage. I built my S just after Hasegawa released their kit with older roundels and serials. It has similar grey panel on spine as the winter shot which is dated 1989. It has correct date. I know because I was at Utti that day 😉 

 

I believe that Laukkanen book tells the approximate time when the spear aerial was removed and also when the markings were changed to the low visibility ones. I thonk the spear was disappeared alredy mid-1980s.

 

Edit: This box-top photo is from summer 1986 at Rissala MiG-29 Air Show: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/revell-04264-saab-35-s-draken--129369 No spear any more.

 

Edit 2: Another photo from the same day and place: https://www.airhistory.net/photo/444551/DK-223 Looks like Revell has removed the spear antenna so box top will match with the kit! 🙄

 

BTW as I just remembered, S had different, mostly flat instead of spokes nose wheel hub than the earlier subtypes.

 

Cheers with 🐻,

 

AaCee

Edited March 14, 2023 by AaCee26
Picture link added, second pic link added

[reini]

@AaCee26 That is good information - thank you! It all makes sense now.

 

I'll include the picture here in question once more with the text this time:

 

 

It states in the text that the photo is taken 'in the 90's'. 

 

Let's do a summary:

 

-In two of the pics DK-215 have the spear antenna on the spine - photos dated 'march 1984' (see earlier posts) and 'in the 90's'.

-And if we know the spear antenna on the back of DK-215 has already been removed by 1989 at the latest - verified by a third photo and first hand records by a person who was there.  

-Combined with the 'march 1984' pic with the freshly painted tail, it really does put the 'in the 90's' silver tail before that - that really would fit the timeline.

-Conclusion - DK-215 picture with the silver tail cannot be taken 'in the 90's' but is most likely taken in summer/early autumn 1983.

 

Just like @AaCee26 suspected in the first place - sorry I doubted you!

 

Thanks again @AaCee26 - I might call upon your expertise as this build progresses  You mentioned something about hubs...

 

Now I just need to decide whether I do DK-215 with silver or freshly painted tail... hmm... 

[AaCee26]

On 3/11/2023 at 9:10 AM, reini said:

 

It states in the text that the photo is taken 'in the 90's'. 

Tnx! Obviously a wrong photo caption as it is for DK-241 at Helsinki-Vantaa with day-glo stripes and kill marks... I think there are a couple of '41 with such livery in the book so for some reason there is a mitch-match between photos and captions.

 

On 3/11/2023 at 9:10 AM, reini said:

 You mentioned something about hubs...

S-model had flat nose-wheel hub. There was a resin nose-gear with it from Kuivalainen but I have no clue about availability of it

 

Cheers,

 

AaCee

Edited March 14, 2023 by AaCee26
Typo

[reini]

 

Slowly but surely it is moving forwards. I've made a start with the cockpit. Vallejo Model Air 71.137 was pretty close match with the PE parts. Seat should be gray, not green - I just painted it in the same time as the cockpit, not even checking the correct colour.

[reini]

 

 

Cockpit done! Well, most of it. I will leave the canopy open and there will be canopy rails and other stuff but I will leave those to the finishing stage, too big of a risk to knock them out during the rest of the build process.

 

Pretty happy that I got the cockpit done and internal painting done so I can continue closing up the fuselage.

 

But most happy I am that I finally got started with my BBQ season!   Watch out @Marlin - I know you've been out cooking for a while now but BBQ season has officially opened in Finland too  

 

Today's menu:

 

Sweet peppers filled with mushrooms & blue cheese - all wrapped in bacon! Because bacon makes everything better.

 

 

 

Like so. Oh, and gotta have some meat too (that bacon wrapped pepper thingy is a veggie, youknow  ) so I got some thin pork neck steaks, all seasoned up with my favourite spice rub (https://www.poppamies.fi/burgers-ribs-rub/?lang=en)

 

 

 

We are getting there. Need to add BBQ sauce and let it turn all sweet & tacky.

 

 

 

First BBQ of the season done. It was looking bit mono-colored so I picked up some green stuff from the garden just for the looks  I did make a big mistake though, I forgot to buy a refreshing drink to go with the meal. Oh well, maybe next time...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marlin]

@reini

WOW.  

Bacon wrapped bell peppers with Aura cheese.  

I must try that some time. 

I've actually only had one opportunity to BBQ this season. 

Been too busy with dismantling the Estate of my mother, but her apartment is now sold, so I'll be going to the cottage more weekends now when all the work with emptying mothers apartment is done.

 

As for you Draken it looks great. 

I'll be adding a Draken to my Mega Multi build later on this year. 

 

/Bosse  

 

[reini]

@Marlin If you want a simple version you can do it without bell peppers. Just take mushrooms, remove the stem, fill with Aura-cheese and wrap bacon around it. Amazing little salty snacks/side dish.

 

[reini]

 

Kinda starting to look like a Draken. Note the gunport on the left wing edge that has been plugged shut and puttied over. This is actually noted in the instructions and comes with a part that fits over the gun port. Early Drakens had two guns but later ones had the other gun replaced my electronics. The version I am doing is J35S which is basically Finnish version of J35F.

 

 

 

Well, now it really starts to look like a Draken with wings & intakes on. Some minor putty here and there just to smoothen things out.

 

 

 

Finnish Drakens might have the spear antenna installed that does not come with the kit. I made one from plasticard and the kit pitot tube (as I will be replacing it with Master brass pitot tube instead anyways).

 

 

 

Tail cone fit was not perfect so it was the one location that needed a little bit more putty work but nothing major.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[reini]

 

I primed the model black first and then with Vallejo Aged White created mottled effect using a mask. 

 

 

 

It breaks up the flat surfaces a little bit, how strong the effect is depends on how thick layer of paint you will put on. I usually do couple very light passes so that I won't paint over the effect right away by accident.

 

 

 

As I'm planning to do a rather worn out Draken, I added some lighter paint patches here and there to create even more variance. This all will be darkened out again when I hit it with weathering stuff like oil paints.

[AaCee26]

On 5/25/2023 at 11:10 PM, reini said:

 

 

Tail cone fit was not perfect so it was the one location that needed a little bit more putty work but nothing major.

IIRC building mine fuselage halves needed some filing to get flat surface for attaching the rear part. It was easier to do before installing the fin and rudder.

 

Cheers,

 

AaCee

[reini]

14 hours ago, AaCee26 said:

IIRC building mine fuselage halves needed some filing to get flat surface for attaching the rear part. It was easier to do before installing the fin and rudder.

 

Cheers,

 

AaCee

 

I agree, it would have been 😄 I tend to glue first and deal with the results later 😄

[AaCee26]

9 hours ago, reini said:

 

I agree, it would have been 😄 I tend to glue first and deal with the results later 😄

Well,

 

Hiki säästää verta as they say locally... (Sweat saves blood)

 

Kippis,

 

AaCee

[reini]

 

First upper camo colour is on - Vallejo Model Air 71.292 US Loam. My plan is to paint the camo, then mask out the rear section and start fading out the camo for the rest of the plane.

 

I decided I go for this look: