RSAF J9 / P-35 1/48 Dora Wings
Dora Wings have done an excellent job capturing the overall shape of this plane, it's light years more accurate than the old Hobby Craft kit. The build is fairly labor intensive and test fitting of parts is a must as with all limited run kits. There are a few things, for some reason, Dora Wings didn't provide in the kit. J9's had head armor and a head rest pad behind the pilots seat and these parts are not in the kit. Also J9's did not have the right wing landing light. Fixing this is easy as all one needs to do is glue in the clear light cover and putty it smooth. As far as the head armor/head rest I made the armor from sheet plastic and the head rest from poster tack putty. These fixes are not hard to do but the instructions have no information about this. I'm fortunate to have good references on the J9 but what about the modeler that hasn't? The other major pain are the photo etched cowl gills. Yes you can get them to fit but it's a lot of work. I hope on future radial engine kits Dora Wings re-thinks this. The kit canopy hood is too thick to be posed properly in the open position. Once again I resorted to my trusty old Mattel vac machine and using the kit hood as a master made a replacement. I also added canopy slide rails between the windscreen and rear canopy to give a more realistic look. The kit pitot tube is undersized so a built one up from plastic strip and rod. The landing light cover was made from cello tape. This kit is a fair amount of work but it does look nice completed and I'm happy with the result.
Turned out great, Dale!
Great work on the camouflage, Dale - everything looks great!
Fine work Dale! Thanks for showing her to us here! 🙂
All your extra work and research has really paid off, definitely liked.
Excellent paint job. Unique Swedish camo. Sounds like the Dora Wings kit was a bit of a challenge.
This is one of the best P-35s evah! Superb work and great capture of the RSAF's Italian-style camo.
Awesome work.
Well done Dale, your extra work really shows. Great camo paint job as well.
Excellent build, Dale!
Love the Is edish camp, which you represented spotlessly.
Thanks for all the kit info!
Extremely nice build, Dale.
The additional work you did made it look very realistic.
Great camouflage as well.
I'm still looking for a nice Swedish build and this might be one of them.
Very sharp build.
As you have so well demonstrated here, @dtravis, it's a kit that takes work, but the result is definitely worth the effort. I like this a lot.
Turned out great! Looks definitely better than the old Hobbycraft kit.
I like your camo work.
Thanks everyone for the positive comments!
Good job on that J 9! Love the underside over size crown marks.
When I was a kid the F 8 wing at Barkarby was still used by the RSwAF and we could watch J 35 Draken go down the runway with a mighty roar. The eagle emblem was at the gate to the flying club housing there. Now, the entire area is built up with houses and shopping facilities ...
That looks fantastic! Love the scheme, and the finish work is really nice on this. Well done.
An impressive build!
Great job! Liked.
Great job, inspiring!
Dale, maybe Dora Wings took your and other's comments to heart and made some corrections. The kit I got yesterday, 28 Sept 2022, from The48ers has the headrest. It's step 18, PE parts 23 & 24 and injected parts F34 & F35, which I confirmed are in the box. The assembled headrest isn't fastened to the fuselage decking until step 31, and there is no reference there back to step 18. While the extraneous landing light and cover for the right wing is still present, the light and cover for the left wing are provided, too, even if the cover is a bit thick. I fully agree with you about those PE cowl flaps!
You and others who have a thing for this little fighter in Swedish markings might enjoy viewing it in flight and in snow - and take a look at those prop covers:
I hope DW get the dedicated US P-35A to market, but if not, I think this kit can be made as the Philippine version by altering the armament to - IIRC - .50 cowl guns and .30 wing guns.