Hi everyone!

Here is the 1/48 Hasegawa "Limited edition" Scandinavian Draken.

The Saab 35 Draken ('The Kite or The Dragon') is a Swedish fighter aircraft developed and manufactured by Saab between 1955 and 1974. It was the first fully supersonic aircraft to be deployed in Western Europe and the first aircraft to do the Cobra maneuver.

It is a plane I love, with a definite futuristic shape, always wanted to build a model of it.

Upon a "discussion" here in iModeler, I expressed this wish and my friend Erik @airbum sent me one (along with spme "other" gems) immediately, making me happy, laughing like a child. Thanks again, my friend!

Erik is a wonderful person, a good friend and a great fellow modeler.

I try to reduce my Shelf of Doom, denying any "new entry": So, the Draken was not allowed to enter the SoD, but took immediately its position in my model building production line.

This is a beautuful kit. I am really amazed by the crispness of the parts.

Instructions are typical great Hasegawa ones.

There are three schemes provided, a Swedish and a Danish recon and a Finnish fighter, with the decals being excellent.

The Swedish and Finnish are in dark blue and green over grey, and the Danish is in a lovely gloss green allaround.

Upon studying the scheme options, my choice was immediately auto-selected:

I am going to build the RDAF RF-35, as a way to honour my friend Erik and his country. It is a beautiful scheme nevertheless, with little discrete roundels, accentuating the truly fantastic Draken shape. It sports formation lights, too. It looks extremely cool indeed!

Some projects are on higher priority at the moment, but it won't be long since I will cut those lovely sprues.

All the best!

Thanks my friend @airbum!
Totally agree with you. Choosing the latter colours is wise, early colours still VERY
interesting!
I will try (...) not to cut sprue still, so there's alittle decision time!
Thanks for the pics, the Draken looks awesome, especially at the second pic!
I love those 5-wheelers!

My friend @airbum, I think the Draken looked light years more futuristic back then, than the F-35 looks today (ok, just me?). There have been kind of double delta designs, but THIS is coming (still) from the future.

You can never go wrong with a Gorup Build, no matter how small. Of course, should you ever decide ths F-35, autoadd me please!

A diorama is always a splendid idea, though my experience is minuscule at.

I bet they would tailsit with the slightest smear of wind...

And a technical question:were the late gloss schemes flown, or they were just static display planes?

Thanks for great info, my friend @airbum. Now, how can I resist the gloss?...With mere spotties of matt-fading? There's still time to decide...

Nice choice, Spiros. I like the Draken too. I also like the later gloss Danish scheme. I’m eventually going to do a Danish F-104 in that color. Haven’t decided on which paint to use yet. I’m thinking Xtracolor FS 14079 (Dk. US Vietnam green). Thoughts?

Thanks John @j-healy!

FS 14079 is the recommended gloss shade for these schemes. You cannot go wrong with Xtracolor, so it seems you are in a succesful path with it.

Humbrol equivalent (I use Humbrols) is 116, which is matt and will have to be glosscoated. This will make it darker and, to my feeling it is still a tad darker than the colour I observe at the net pics. So the darker will become even darker!

I have custom made Hu102 with some black in it and it looks "right" to my eye. I might use this...

Here's a pic with the two Humbrols under it: 116 and custom-darkened 102. 102 looks closer to my eye.

I eagerly wait to see your Danish Starfighter! It will look supercool in the dark green scheme!

Those are good color picks too. The trouble for me is that the color looks different in every photo I see.

Thanks for watching, my friends!

Hi Stellan @stellan! I bet you are correct! Gloss finishes are way too easy to keep up with in corrosive environments. Erik's @airbum above comment provides a lot of useful info on the subject.

Hi John @J-healy! That's the oddity of the photo references! The colours look different under different light conditions, to say the least... This is a major discussion among modellers, with many interesting views.
When in doubt, I study as many pics as I can, trying to correlate what I see with the conditions the pic was taken under. Also, I take into account if the subject is freshly painted or has flown 5 hard years with this paint.
After some "global" thinking, I set my mind and usually look in my paint supplies to find the closest match of the shade I finally settled in.

Hi George @gblair! Thanks a lot!