1/48 Saab Gripen

Gallery Article by Darius Aibara on Aug 20 2003

 

The Saab Gripen has been kitted by Italeri in 1:72 scale and by Revell in 1:144, however to my knowledge there has not been a 1:48 kit of this aircraft...or so I thought.  In a kit stall at this year's Biggin Hill air show I spotted a box pertaining to contain a 1:48 Gripen for the princely sum of £15.  On opening the lid I discovered that the contents were a solid plastic display model with separate armament fit options and a clear plastic canopy.  The latter was a clincher as if the canopy had been painted on (as is often the case with display models) then I would not have proceeded.  The aircraft fuselage was well moulded with recessed panel lines for the control surfaces, but there was no undercarriage and the gear doors were screen printed in outline and were off register with the aircraft centreline as was the fuel tank pylon moulding.  The cockpit was moulded as a rectangular slot with a poor ejection seat, stick on console and a HUD that was at least 6 scale inches thick.  The nose pitot was a steel wire in an off-centre hole.  The Swedish AF markings were  screen printed low vis types.  The armament options were excellent, however, with a choice of AIM 120s, AGM 65s and Rb 15F anti-ship missiles.

 

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The first step in improving this model was to scratch build the undercarriage and hollow out the wheel wells from the solid plastic fuselage.  To help with this task I referred to the excellent photographs of the Saab Gripen on the IPMS Stockholm website which has photographs of almost every part of this aircraft.  The hollowing out of the wheel wells was a "lot of fun", using multiple drill holes, carving and chiselling but was eventually completed over a few evenings.

The undercarriage was scratch built using spares box parts, sprue stock, plastic card and stretched sprue.   The canard foreplanes were just push in items, however on the real aircraft part of the canard profile is fixed to the fuselage with the joint immediately outboard.  I separated the first 1.5mm of the canards and glued them to the fuselage, fairing them in with filler.  New steel rod pivots were made and inserted in to pre-drilled holes in the fuselage and canards enabling them to rotate.

The nose and tailplane pitot tubes were replaced with thin steel rod and aerials etc. were added from the spares box.  A new MFD cockpit console was made using plastic card and spare decals and an Airwaves resin MB Mk 16 seat (a spare from a single seat EF2000) was painted up and installed.  The seat should be a MB Mk 10s, however the Mk16 does not look too bad under the canopy.  The rather thick canopy was cleaned up and coated with Johnson's Clear  before attaching with small amounts of super glue.  Being slightly wider than the forward fuselage it needed to be faired in with filler. 

The model was fine sanded to remove original moulding blemishes and primed with Halfords grey auto primer prior to brush painting with Humbrol enamels.  The original printed markings had now been obliterated so I used some of the new Two Bobs Saab Viggen hi-viz decals to complete the model - not strictly appropriate for a Gripen but it looks right.  The decals were sealed in with Johnson's Clear prior to a final application of Humbrol matt cote.  With a not insubstantial effort I now have a 1:48 Gripen, which means that a true 1:48 kit of this aircraft will no doubt appear shortly!

Darius Aibara

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Photos and text © by Darius Aibara