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Updating the Heller Jaktviggen

Hi!

I just felt the urge the other day to build some European fighters, so I went out and got myself a Gripen, a Typhoon and a Viggen, all in 1/72. I know the Gripen kit - there's a couple of good articles online about what to do with it - and I'm leaving the Typhoon more or less alone for a little while. So, the final questionmark would be the Viggen.

I'd like to construct my Viggen as a JA-37 Mod D (Edit 34) Jaktviggen. I don't have a saw, and I don't plan on building an AJ-37 of any stripe (not with *my* painting and masking skills!), so I've decided not to bother extending the aircraft (a matter of inserting a 1 mm slice of plastic card at the real base of the radome, and between the canard and wing root), but I'm curious as to what other small mods may be needed in order to get things to look right.

I took a look at the Viggen pics from "

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", and the only external difference visible in the available shots between the Mod D Jaktviggen and the stock model is the LAU-13x missile rails on the inboard and fuselage stations, and the ability to carry a countermeasures pod. Also, I gather that the kit fuel tank is incorrect, so I'm leaving it off - I've seen enough JA-37s in real life to know that they're not always carried.

Are there any other things I should look out for?

Secondly, I'm somewhat suspicious of the painting instructions for both of my Swedish fighters - both aircraft are painted the same way in real life, but Italeri says to use Light Ghost Gray on the underside and Medium Gray on top, while Heller says Light Ghost Gray on top and lightened Light Ghost Gray on the underside. I don't think either match

- I've been thinking about using Compass Gray on top, and lightened Ghost Gray on the bottom. Anyone have a different opinion? I've got access to Modelmaster I, Humbrol, Tamiya and Gunze Aqueous colors, and an exact color match would be appreciated.

Thirdly, aside from recasting for them myself (which is way beyond my skills), buying a bunch of Hasegawa "V" sets, or lots of block 50 Vipers and building them as block 25s, is there any way to get a hold of AMRAAMs and rails in bulk? Is there a better weapons set that doesn't leave me with loads of unusable ordnance? (What *was* the point of including two new-style F-14 sidewinder rails on each sprue of set VII? I've got *twenty* of these things now - and no Tomcat to install them on!)

Here's to hoping Hasegawa spits out a set of European weapons like the Meteor, IRIS-T and ASRAAM, maybe an Apache or Bombkapsel per sprue, and some AIM-120C and AIM-9X - *with the dual launch rail for the Hornets!*

- thrown in.

SP

Reply to
Sebastian Palm
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The Revell of Germany F-16C "Block 50" kits have AMRAAMs and LAU-129 rails to spare. In the F-16C boxing, you get four AIM-120C's, four wingtip and four underwing launchers, in addition to the earlier style rails.

These kits can't be built OOB as BLock 50s as they lack bulged main gear doors, but they make very nice Block 30s and earlier models.

HTH,

Andre

Reply to
Andre van der Hoek

Considering the miniscule difference between the bulged doors and the regular ones in the Hasegawa kit, it can't be that hard to fix. And my regular shop naturally doesn't carry the Block 50 version - only the MLU F-16A.

I managed to screw up my poor Viggen pretty badly, by choosing a paint that looked grey in the can, but turned out to be mint green when dry. Guess I'll have to sand it off again... Gives me an excuse to get rid of the panel lines, too. I'm thinkin of just drawing them on with a pencil, as from the photos of the real thing, they're all smoothed out with some type of putty, that's a little darker in color than the rest.

Thanks for the tip, anyway - I've got just enough spares for now, since I'm going to be building a Hasegawa Block 50 as an F-16N (screwed the gear doors) which means it won't need the rails. I'll most likely swipe the spare wingtip rails from the Super Hornet for the outboard stations, as well. I just got to get it ready for repainting.

Did any of the -N model have the big mouth intake?

SP

Reply to
Sebastian Palm

Oh well, at least the decals are better in that boxing. 8)

Nope, all smallmouths.

Cheers,

Andre

Reply to
Andre van der Hoek

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