Black Dragon - 1/48 Hasegawa J-35O Draken

Gallery Article by Mike Regan on Apr 27 2010

 

J-35Ö – Drakens in Austrian service.

Austria is no stranger to Swedish aircraft, having used the J-29 Tunnan and SAAB 105 for many years. The J-29s were retired in 1974 and after casting around for a replacement, the Austrians settled on 24 ex-Swedish J-35Ds, suitably upgraded. The deal was done in 1985, with deliveries over 1987-1988. The Drakens were upgraded to J-35F standard with new bulged canopies, chaff dispensers and a new RWR suite being fitted. The type was given the designation J-35Ö for Öesterriech ( Austria ). One limitation was that the J-35Ö was only able to carry a gun armament – post WW2 treaty restrictions forbade Austria from operating missile-armed aircraft. With the collapse of the Soviet Union this restriction was relaxed and in the last few years before being retired, the Austrian Draken fleet acquired Sidewinder missiles from Sweden . The type was supposed to have been phased out in 1998, but stayed in service until 2005, when the Draken was replaced by second-hand F-5E Tiger IIs from Switzerland – these are now in turn giving way to the much more potent Eurofighter Typhoon.

 

The kit

I can remember my first glimpse of a Draken – it was the box art picture of the Revell 1/72nd scale kit in a Revell catalogue waaaay back in the 1970s. I’ve always been intrigued by the Draken ever since. I never did get my mitts on the Revell (or Airfix) 1/72nd scale kits – and when Hasegawa released their 1/72nd scale kits a few years ago, I kinda hoped they’d get around to a 1/48th scale version as well.

 

Well, as the expression goes “All cometh to he who waits” and the modeling world was finally given a crack at this distinctive bird in 1/48th scale last year with the release of the J-35J interceptor and then the S-35E/RF-35 recon Draken with Swedish and Danish options. More recently we have had the J-35Ö in a very eye-catching black scheme and we can look forward to two more boxings from Hasegawa of Swedish and Finnish Drakens – can’t wait!

 

The aftermarket crowd have been quick to respond with new resin ,photo-etch and decals from Aires, Quickboost, Maestro Models, Eduard, Two Bobs and Galdecals – obviously latching on to a popular subject!

 

The subject of this build is the Austrian Black Dragon – the J-35Ö.

 

I have to say I’m not a huge fan of “commemorative” schemes in general, only a small few have ever taken my eye – one or two Italian Starfighters come to mind, but that’s about it really. When I first saw this boxing of the 1/48th Draken my first reaction was “so what” but the darn thing just snuck up on me until it became a “must build” (it’s a conspiracy of evil kit makers, I tell ya!!) at any rate, the model found it’s way to my beat-up old modeling table and off I went. I made the decision to go “OOB” with this bird – keep it simple, get it together and zap it with a couple of coats of black paint, then do the decals – done!! Easy!!

 

Anyone around here drink Tui beer….? (It's a Kiwi thing....).

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

Because of the Draken’s unique shape, the fuselage and inboard wing sections are moulded as one-piece upper and lower halves with the outboard wing panels moulded in separate tops and bottoms. As always the cockpit is the starting point and this attaches to the lower half of the fuselage. I also added a small fishing weight for ballast – not entirely sure as to whether it’s needed or not, but I wasn't prepared to find out the hard way that it is!! 

With that lot taken care of, I made up the nose and main undercarriage units – these are all quite involved little sub-assemblies that reward a bit of TLC when being made up. Also, the ram air turbine and little twin bumper tail wheel units were put together. Watching Drakens taking off and landing on You Tube really shows you why those little bumper wheels were needed! 
The afterburner can was made up and given a blast of Testors Metalizer Burnt Metal once dry and set aside – this and the pitot tube can be safely left until construction, painting and decaling are done before being attached. 

The overall fit of the kit is not brilliant – we’re not talking “limited run” here – but this is not a fall-together Tamiya kit either and filler was needed with every major joint, the worst offenders being the intakes and rear fuselage assembly – these all took quite some time to be properly faired in. 

The cockpit (yes, the cockpit) ejector seat, undercarriage units, wheel wells, ram air turbine and bumper wheels were all sprayed with Tamiya XF-16 Aluminium, with the cockpit then having the instruments and side consoles picked out in XF-1 Black. The seat had the cushions done in XF-58 Olive Green with a black head-rest. 

With major assembly complete and all filling done, the model was given two coats of X-1 Gloss Black, thinned with Tamiya lacquer thinners – I find this stuff works well with enamel paints, giving a fast-drying hard finish. Lacquer thinners are rather potent stuff, so PUH-LEESE wear a decent mask when spraying with the stuff – and make sure there’s plenty of ventilation.

 

 

Hasegawa has lifted its game in recent times with its kit decals, they are somewhat thinner than they used to be, and the white is now actually “white” rather than the cream colour we’ve been used to seeing for way too long. The opacity is very good too, something I can attest to after having applied the decals to this beastie! 

There are an awful lot of yellow decals to be applied with this scheme – a very intricate yellow design is on the belly of this Draken, split into multiple parts by Hasegawa. 

I would have spent around four-five hours in total decaling this bird – the decals are very “sticky” in that once they are down, that’s it – they are very, very difficult to budge if they are in the wrong place, something I found out the hard way – you have to get yer aim right first time!!

As noted, the opacity of these decals is excellent – I’m very impressed at the total lack of bleed-through of black for even the smallest of the decals – especially with the smallest of the yellow decals. There was some cracking, but this is most likely as result of ham-fisted attempts by me to shift decals along – these were touched up with XF-3 Yellow – normally a really ‘orrible lemony colour, but just the match for these decals!

With the decals dry, the undercarriage, drop tanks, bumper wheels and ram turbine were attached.

The whole shebang was then finished off with the addition of the pitot tube (also decaled) and the ‘burner can and given a coat of Testors Glosscote and ta-daah! One eye-catching black and yellow model! 

Model courtesy of that most endangered of species, this modeller’s wallet.

Mike Regan

Photos and text © by Mike Regan