1/48 Tarangus Saab JA 37 Viggen

Gallery Article by Burt Gustafson on May 20 2015

 

      

For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos of my Tarangus Saab JA 37 Viggen 

The Saab JA 37 Viggen ("Thunderbolt") is a Swedish single-seat, single-engine, short-to-medium range combat aircraft, manufactured by Saab between 1970 and 1990. The Viggen was initially developed as a replacement for the Saab 32 Lansen in the attack role and later the Saab 35 Draken as a fighter. The Viggen was powered by a single Volvo RM8 turbofan engine, and the airframe incorporated a thrust-reverser to use during landings and land maneuvers. This combined with the aircraft having flight capabilities approaching a limited STOL-like performance, enabled operations from 500 meter (approximately 1600 feet) airstrips with minimal support. 

The thrust reverser could be pre-selected in the air to engage when the nose-wheel strut was compressed after touchdown. The Viggen was the first aircraft to feature both afterburners and thrust-reverser. Only the Viggen, Concorde and the Tornado featured both afterburners and thrust-reversers. A weapons load of up to 7,000 kg could be accommodated on nine hardpoints: one centerline pylon, two fuselage pylons, two inner and two outer wing pylons and two pylons behind the wing landing gear. A KCA 30mm internal cannon was carried as well along with 126 rounds, in a conformal pod under the fuselage. An external fuel tank could be mounted onto the gun pod.

 

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The Kit
The Tarangus 1/48 scale JA 37 Viggen kit is made up of eight sprues, a ten page instruction guide, one decal sheet, and a colored paint/decal instruction guide. Tarangus delayed the release of this kit as they were determined to get it right—for the most part they did.

Construction
This was an out of the box build except for the PE seat belts I added to the ejection seat. The parts fit was only fair, so there was a fair amount of seam filling and sanding. However, you can build this kit without any major problems just by following the well illustrated instruction guide.

Painting
The kit paint/decal guide shows several paint schemes for the Viggen. After searching the web for Viggen images, I found that the Viggen was painted in a variety of different colors, including bare metal. I chose to paint my Viggen with the color that matched the Viggen on the box art. That color was MM RAF Dark Sea Gray. The wheel wells and the doors, along with the landing gears were painted with Floquil Bright Silver. The nose was painted with MM Dark Ghost Gray.

Decals
Once the paint dried and cured I hand brush two coats of Future on the model and let in dry for 3 days in preparation for decals. The decal sheet provides decals for two Viggens. I chose to use the decals for aircraft 37449 which is at the Air Force Museum at Linköping.

The decals have minimal carrier film and laid down nicely on the model, but, be careful as the adhesive liquefies quickly. I had a couple of stencils float off the backing paper into the water. I also found the decal location guide was a bit confusing, as a result I placed several decals in the wrong location. Additionally, the panel lines on the location guide don't always match the lines on the model. Once decaling was complete I cleaned up the model with a damp cloth, then applied a light coat of Future over the model. To finish off the model, I airbrushed it with a coat of MM Semi Gloss Lacquer Finish.

Comments
Did Tarangus get it right? Yes they pretty much did. The parts fit was pretty good with no major hassles. The external detail is excellent and the decals performed well even though most of the stencils are not legible. Once again, I was not pleased with the decal placement guide—too confusing.

A Work Bench Review of this kit in the April issue of Fine Scale Modeler said it took 25 hours to build this kit. I don't keep track of the time it takes me to build a model, but I tell you it took me more than 25 hours to build this kit. This kit is not a weekend project as it has 156 parts. Much of my time was spent seam filling and decaling. I was pleased with the finished model―it looks like a Viggen.

Burt Gustafson

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Photos and text © by Burt Gustafson