1/48 Hasegawa S35E Draken

Gallery Article by Burt Gustafson on Sept 23 2016

 

      

For your viewing pleasure, here is my article and some photos of my 1/48 scale S35E Draken.

The Saab 35 Draken (the kite or "the dragon") was a Swedish fighter aircraft manufactured by Saab between 1955 and 1974. The Draken was a very effective supersonic Cold War fighter. It was also exported to Austria, Denmark, Finland, and to the United States as a test pilot training aircraft. Note that the Draken was the first fully supersonic aircraft to be deployed in Western Europe.

The S35E is the reconnaissance version of the Draken. The radar and the armament was removed and several cameras were mounted in the nose. The aircraft was unarmed but had a countermeasure system to increase its survivability. The S35E had a total of seven French OMERA/Segid cameras mounted throughout the airframe. In order to ease access to the cameras, the nose cone was mounted on rails that enabled it to slide out for servicing. The pilot had a downward-looking periscope sight to help aim the aircraft/cameras and a cockpit voice tape recorder to comment on the imagery.

Apart from the addition of the cameras and deletion of the radar and cannons, the S35E featured few changes from the J35D from which it was derived. Plumbing was added to the wings, enabling the S35E to carry four 530 litre (140 gallon) fuel tanks, giving it a significantly longer range than the J35D. A chaff/flare dispenser could be carried in place of one of the wing-mounted fuel tanks.

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Construction
This was an out of the box build. The kit went together fairly well following the building instructions. Assembly illustrations were pretty clear and the parts fit was good.

Painting
Unlike other versions of the Draken, the S35E had a bare metal finish. Once the model was built, I primed it with a coat of MM Gloss Black and let it dry and cure for 48 hours. To achieve a shinny bare metal finish I then airbrushed the model with several coats of Alclad II Polished Aluminum.

Decals
Decals for the aircraft were excellent, easily placed on the model.

Comment
With excellent detail, a reasonably good fit, and good decals, the 1/48 scale Hasegawa S35E Draken is very buildable.

Burt Gustafson

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Photos and text © by Burt Gustafson