Greetings from
Colombia! From the depths of the modeller hell the Tigre del Aire is
reborn!
This is my Saab J-29
Tunnan that served during the war of the Congo with the UN Forces, but first a
bit of history!:
The Saab 29, popularly called Tunnan
("the barrel"), was a Swedish fighter
designed and manufactured by Saab
in the 1950s. It was Sweden's second turbojet-powered combat aircraft, the first
being the Saab
21R. Despite its rotund appearance, the J 29 was fast and agile, serving
effectively in both fighter and fighter-bomber roles into the 1970s.
The Tunnan was the first and only
Swedish jet aircraft to fight in combat. In 1961, five J 29Bs were stationed in
the Democratic
Republic of the Congo for a UN
peacekeeping mission (ONUC),
organized as the F 22 Wing of the Swedish
Air Force. It was reinforced by four J 29B and two S 29C (the photo
reconnaissance version) in 1962. Most of the missions involved attacking ground
targets with internal cannons as well as unguided rockets. No aircraft were lost
in action despite large amounts of AAA.
Consensus of the crews and foreign
observers was that the Tunnan's capabilities were exceptional. (Their secessionist adversaries used a few
Fouga
Magisters and other aircraft with relatively poor air combat capabilities.)
The only aircraft lost was by a high-ranking officer, who made a trial-run and
crashed during an aborted takeoff. When ONUC
was terminated in 1964, some of the Swedish aircraft were destroyed at their
base, since they were no longer needed at home and the cost of taking them all
back was deemed excessive. (from Wikipedia).
Click on
images below to see larger images
It is a Heller kit (very old!) whose instructions
are very particular and they seem to be
written with a typewriter! The decals are excellent quality and they were
not old in spite of the old of the kit, there were no problems in the lace of
pieces and it was a delight to build it! The paint scheme is the kit
scheme, as for additional detail I stopped with the opened canopy and a
pilot with the arms out of the cabin as if he was entering to the plane.
A special gratefulness to my friend
kater that sold me the model; I was lost but I returned to appear!
Tigre del Aire
COLOMBIA ES PASION!
Saludos desde Colombia, la tierra de
Juan Valdez!
Greetings from Colombia, the land of
Juan Valdez!
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