Hasegawa / Eduard

1/48 J35O Draken "Austrian Black Special" S 35E Draken Interior S.A.

Kit Number: Hasegawa 09888, Eduard FE471

Reviewed by  Chris Smith, IPMS# 13982

MSRP: Hasegawa: $61.00 Eduard $15.00 Kit courtesy of Dragon Models USA Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Eduard Website: www.eduard.cz Eduard catalog item First flown in 1955, the SAAB Draken (Dragon) would establish the benchmark for the other great Swedish jets like the Viggen and today's Gripen. Like most jet fighters, the Draken went through a series of modifications to expand its capabilities beyond that of the pure interceptor it was designed to be. This kit represents the Austrian (Oesterreich) version; hence the "O" designation. The Austrian air force was the last to use the Draken and this kit replicates the farewell black paint scheme it wore in 2005. The Kit No surprises here. This is a Hasegawa kit and all the expectations the name carries are satisfied when you open the box. You'll find 171 light grey plastic bits and 10 clear pieces of mold making perfection. The decal sheet contains one marking option, as this is a special edition kit. The Detail set This is one of Eduard's color self adhesive sets. You get all the cockpit adornments including: instrument panels, side consoles, harness, some mesh panels for the ejection seat, cockpit placards and details for the canopy in the form of a release lever and rear view mirrors. As an added bonus, there are placards for the landing gear struts, so the "interior set" clearly goes beyond the pilot's office.

The Build As always, I started with the cockpit. The Eduard set establishes the color scheme which most closely resembles Interior Green. A minor bit of surgery is required in that you have to remove raised detail on side consoles, the ejection seat back, the lower ejection seat and the instrument panel coaming to accommodate the Eduard parts. The instrument panel replaces the kit part and is a sandwich affair, with a separate scope shroud you have to bend up. The ejection seat really benefits because there is no harness in the kit and the PE mesh panels replace the solid ones on the original part. These parts give a level of detail that would be difficult to do with a brush. The adhesive bonds very well once the part is pressed down and allows adjustment if you don't get it right the first time. This cockpit assembly mounts under the upper half of the fuselage. Make sure you paint the cockpit area on the upper and lower fuselage halves or you'll have a tricky gap to touch up once it's glued together. If you've built delta wing models you know the configuration reduces the amount of parts and generally is faster than conventional aircraft. No exception here. Everything went together in an afternoon. Don't forget to weight the nose before you close it. There are a few inserts for cannon openings and the panel differences unique to this version. The landing gear assemblies are gems and duplicate the real thing exactly from the references I found. I used a small amount of putty, mainly to fix sprue connections that I over cut. Painting You have three color options: black, black, or…black. The real aircraft is a very glossy overall black. This means your bodywork has to be flawless, as I can't think of a color that reveals shortcomings more. I primed with Testors grey primer spray and was not happy with the result. It orange peeled when applied and dried that way. It dried very hard and sanding smooth would have ruined the model. My finish paint choice was Tamiya's gloss black lacquer spray. The paint gremlins were hard at work. My bench is in the garage and I always battle the dust monster when spraying gloss paints. As fate would have it, a big spot landed in the middle of the upper wing and dried there! After some sanding, masking and a repaint it was fixed. The end result is not great, but my looming deadline told me not to start over. All the landing gear, tail wheel and generator bays were pre painted with alclad aluminium. Finishing Touches Part of the appeal of this kit is the contrasting yellow markings over the shiny black. At first glance, the decal sheet has everything you need to replicate the markings on the real bird. The geometric pattern that covers the underside looks difficult, but Hasegawa have done a good job of providing cues to location so alignment is surprisingly easy. The yellow portions are printed over white so the color remains bright. A lot of time is saved in that most of the stenciling on the underside is incorporated into the larger pieces. Problems arose when the decals hit the model. This model has some tight curves and a lot of recessed details. The carrier film on the decals is a bit heavy and as a result, the decals do not settle into the relief. Micro set did almost nothing and Solvaset barely made a dent. Relief cuts and minor paint touch ups were needed to make everything lay flat on the models surface. Overall it works and is really quite striking when done. The landing gear, tail bumper wheels, ejection seat, antennas and canopy were added to complete this delta winged masterpiece. Conclusion I was really looking forward to building this kit, and overall I wasn't disappointed. The model quality is top-notch and the Eduard PE set really took this project to the next level. I would say anyone with a kit or two under their belt could make a nice model out of the box. As for the Eduard set, this won't be the last time one of these sets graces my projects. I think the pre-painted self adhesive sets are a good place to start if you've never done PE before. You'll find some great video footage of real Drakens on YouTube, including some of this aircraft. I found discount pricing on both items at spruebrothers.com that totaled 44 dollars w/o shipping. That's a good deal in my opinion. Thanks to Hasegawa and Eduard for the samples and to IPMS for allowing me to share this build with all of you.