Torsten, I like your jet collection, in particular the Drakens. The J-35s are one of my favorite Cold war fighters.

Torsten,

As Damian said, I also can't recall seeing a built up model of the Saab J 29. As usual, your build is a perfect quality museum model. The choice of the Austrian markings certainly add some much needed color to the all Aluminum finish.

Joel

After 4 years we've reached page 2 in this thread, yeah!

Thanks for all your comments, guys! I didn't expect that much feedback ....

Damian, the Tunnan is surely not much known around. That counts for all Saab aircraft, I guess, except the Draken, which is world famous. Glad you enjoyed my little history lesson. In this past week I've searched the web for some deeper informations about the aircraft to make this a good roll out.

Bill, I'm glad you like my little jet collection. Yes, the Draken is also one of my favourite jets. When I was a child I've seen for several times Danish Air Force Drakens on exercise over the danish island of Römö, when I was there on holidays. That's a good reason to get a danish Draken now. Seems I've got a soft spot for Saab aircraft. The Lansen from Hobbyboss is already ordered and somewhere in my stash is a Gripen hiding. A soft spot for all 4 scandinavian countries I have for sure ....

Joel, I havn't seen a Tunnan built either and think it will be a good eye catcher on expos. In June we have our own from my club, the first time the J 29 will be seen live. You're right, the red/white markings add some colour to the finish beside the yellow wing tips. Because of that, I've chosen the austrian version. But Austria has no "Low Viz" national insignia, as can be seen here and here on their Eurofighters.

Happy modelling!
Torsten

Hi guys!
No scale kit jets here from me right now, This time I for the real thing. Some of you may remember, that I spent the days around New Years Eve in Stockholm and I would like to take you for a ride around the airports I've been to. Just returned Saturday evening.

First I must apologize for the reflections in some photos, I had to shoot through windows.

The outbound airport for me on the 28. December was Frankfurt International (FRA) and I had some time to take a few shots of the traffic around Terminal 1. This big bird made me smile and let me think of my flight to Cape Town a few years ago. Airbus A 340 of South African Airways ....

.... next is a Boeing 777 of China Airlines

.... an A 330 of Etihad

.... a real big bird is this A 380 of Lufthansa

.... and another A 380 of Thai

.... while we're talking of big birds, here's a Boeing 747 of Lufthansa

.... another Boeing 777 of United

.... a quick pass made this Boeing 737 of Tarom (Romania)

.... a Boeing 787 Dreamliner from Air Canada

.... an A 320 from Vueling (Spain)

.... but my bird of the day was this one. Boeing's work horse on medium distances is the 737, here "Frida Viking", a 737-800 of the SAS Scandinavian Airlines which brought me to Stockholm


To be continued in a moment ....

On the 7. January I had to return home and there was a lovely tail parade around Terminal 5 of Stockholm-Arlanda Airport (ARN), consisting of airliners from Norway, Iran and Russia (left to right) ....

.... a better view of the Aeroflot A 320

.... and the Iran Air airliner

.... on the other side of the terminal waits this colourful Boeing 757 from Icelandair for its guests. Reykjavik is sure a destination for a New Years Eve party in the near future for me

.... don't worry, here's no engine burning. They are just de-icing this SAS bird, getting the full load.

.... and when everything's done, she's ready for another trip

.... I really love the look of the airliners of Norwegian with their red noses. That's why I call them "Rotkäppchen". Many of them have also a great tail art of scandinavian heros. Here's a Boeing 737 with Kirsten Flagstad as tail art, the norwegian opera singer. She's also on the 100 Norwegian Kroner note.


.... another Norwegian Boeing 737 with Karen Blixen, the danish author, who wrote "Out Of Africa". I'm sure everyone of us remembers the movie with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.


.... towing service for another Norwegian 737 with a true norwegian national hero as tail art, Otto Sverdrup, the artic explorer, to be mentioned together with Fridjof Nansen and of course Roald Amundsen

.... a Lufthansa A 320 waiting on a sunny Stockholm winter day

.... coming from my beloved Riga is this little ATR from Air Baltic (Latvia) taxiing towards the terminal

.... a long way from home comes this A 320 from TAP Air Portugal

.... hey you in that Bobbycar, look behind you!

.... another A 320, here from Pegasus (Turkey)

.... and here is "Alvid Viking", a Boeing 737-600 of the SAS, who brought me home again after 10 fantastic days in the swedish capital

.... and finally some inflight impressions




Thanks for flying with me, I hope you've enjoyed it.

Always happy landings!
Torsten

Great images Torsten, thanks for sharing.

Now, back to the bench!

Cheers, D

Sir, yes Sir!

I know you folks didn't ask for it, but you'll get it anyway. So here comes more Saab air power from me. Finished last weekend my new Saab J 32 Lansen from Hobbyboss was at the photographer today ....




.... the Lansen was Sweden's first all-weather jet and used as A 32 fighter bomber (Attack), J 32 fighter (Jakt) and S 32 recon (Spanings) and was the successor of the J 29 Tunnan. It was powered by a Svenska Flygmotor RM6 A Turbojet engine with a thrust of 4900 kp without and 6500 kp with afterburner. The maximum speed was 1150 km/h with a range of about 1000 kilometers. The maximum ceiling was 14000 meters. The internal armament consisted of 4 Aden Akan M55 canons (caliber 30 mm) with 90 rounds each. The Lansen could carry up to 1000 kg of bombs and rockets on 8 hardpoints. 452 Lansen were built between 1954 and 1960 and they were only used by the Royal Swedish Air Force between 1956 and 1997. There are still 3 Lansen in airworthy conditions which can be seen on airshows around Europe ....






.... I have built a J 32 B Lansen of the Kungliga Jämtlands Flygflottilj F4, the Jämtland Wing of the Royal Swedish Air Force, based at Frösön air base. This unit was established in 1926, starting with Hawker Hart biplanes. They later had F-51 Mustangs, before changing to swedish made aircraft like the J 29 Tunnan, the J 35 Draken or the AJ 37 Viggen. The Lansen was in use with this unit only from 1967 to 1969. Last aircraft in this unit was the JAS 39 Gripen before the unit was disbanded in 2005. A side note is that Prime Minister Stefan Löfven served in Flygflottilj 4 as a conscript during his military service in the 1970s ....





.... we have waited many years to get all those nice Saab aircraft in 1/48. A couple of years ago Hasegawa made the beginning with the Draken, then Italeri came up with the Gripen and meanwhile we have quite a variety of Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget aircraft from various manufacturers. When Hobbyboss came out with the Lansen it was of course a "must have" for me. The fitting of the parts is excellent but the cockpit could be more detailed for a price of over 50 Euros. I did the best I could to make it looks nice but decided to leave the canopy closed. An open canopy also always "destroyes" the lines of an aircraft, don't you think so? I used the ordnance which comes with the kit, which I believe are Bofors Rocket Launcher 75 mm and Rb 04 Anti Ship Missiles plus external tanks. Building this beauty is no problem at all but I couldn't find the right paints for the camo. Here goes a big thanks to our Magnus Fridsell, who helped me out. So I used Green FS 34079 from Gunze for the upperside and Grey FS 36320 from Agama for the underside. The cockpit interior was painted with Grey 374 from Revell. The red squares on the wings come as decals but I decided it would look better painted and used Red 330 from Revell. The black nose is painted with Black 302 and the leading edges with Aluminium 99, both paints again from Revell. Masking this bird is no big deal, only the red squares were a bit tricky. I know, they don't look like that, but they were. The decals are thin and glossy and lay down fine into the (few) panel lines. Like on my Tunnan, the stencils are a catastrophy, as they are also more or less unreadable. In 1/48 and for 50 Euros I can expect better quality, like Cartograph. In the absence of an alternative I had to use them. That tailsitter problem I had with my Tunnan didn't occur here, as there is a lot of space in front of the cockpit. So I've put enough weight (fishing lead) in it and now this bird weights 150 grams! Okay, that should be enough. First I was afraid the nose wheel wouldn't carry that weight, but it's sturdy. So no worries!




.... again I say "Tack!" for walking around with me and hope you enjoyed it. And don't you worry, there are a few more Saab aircraft in my stash and one more is in the production plan for this year ....

Happy modelling!
Torsten

The Lansen has been sadly neglected in kits until very recently. It's nice to see it get its day in the sun, and especially nice to see one done so neatly

Thanks for your kind words, Jessie!
I think Tarangus has the Lansen also out in quarterscale in the meantime. My Lansen will get its first sunny day next weekend, when I attend a big expo near Zürich in Switzerland. Though it doesn't look sunny over here now. It's more perfect modelling weather ....
During my search in the internet I found quite a few photos of heavily weathered Lansen, but those were only the two-tone-camo jets, the green-camo birds looked in better shape. One of the 3 still airworthy Lansen has the markings of my model and comes in that well maintained airshow look ....

Torsten

Torsten! You nailed the look on that one ! Well done!



Magnus

Magnus, thanks for your feedback. I'm glad you like the result of my effort. And thanks again for your help. Really appreciated!

Torsten

A lovely collection of model Torsten, well photographed too.

Hi folks!
Been away for a few days and just returned yesterday evening. My destination for this years New Years Eve celebrations was ....

.... the outbound airport was as usual Frankfurt International (FRA) and I had some time to watch airliners taxiing. Would like to share some of the photos I made and must excuse again for some reflections as I had some disturbing lights around me.
First one in front of my little camera was this United Boeing 777 ....

.... a quick pass made another Boeing 777 from Emirates ....

.... Airbus A320 from Austrian ....

.... towing service for a huge Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 in the old livery ....

.... A 321 from Aegean (Greece) ....

....touch down for a Boeing 747 in the new Lufthansa livery (I like the old one more) ....

.... suddenly these guys appeared near the runway. They waited for a Lufthansa flight and when the plane landed it was funny to see them chasing after it ....

.... but it seems to be nothing serious as the fire fighters drove back to their base a few minutes later. Maybe just an ill passenger or a smoking cable ....

.... another big bird is this A 340 from Lufthansa ....

.... an Airbus A 319 from Tunisair ....

.... here comes an A 330 from Turkish Airlines ....

.... my bird of the day was this Lufthansa Airbus A 320-200 (code D-AIUA), which brought me savely to the lithuanian capital ....

.... while we were waiting for the "clear for take-off" I saw another Austrian, this time an Embrear 195 ....

.... first airliner I saw when we arrived at Vilnius was this A 321 from Wizzair (Hungary). Same day, only 2 hours later and finally there is some snow ....


I have taken some more photos on my return day but still have to sort them out. So I'll show a few more this weekend. And believe me, there was snow, a lot of snow ....

Always happy landings!
Torsten

Torsten,

Thanks for the tours of the airports. I like the Lansen, too.

Looking forward to your airline model. One of my roommates from my "freight dog" days now flys Boeing 747-400BCFs for Martinair Holland. They would make a pretty model if you like red.

Thanks Fred! Glad you like my little tour around the airports. I'm not a professional airline spotter, don't have the equipment, so these are only snapshots I can take, whenever I'm on an airport. Never seen a Martinair 747, so I had to google for it. Nice livery. I have only 1 airliner in my stash, it's an Airbus A320 of Lufthansa, the one I usually fly with when I'm away for New Years Eve. You're right, I should tackle it ....

Anyway, Vilnius (VNO) is a nice little airport with only 14 gates in total. So, if you don't find your plane on time, it's your fault, not theirs ....

As I said, it was snowing a lot since the morning of 31. December in Vilnius, so there was quite some snow to remove from run- and taxiways. Here waits an ATR 72 of Norra Nordic Regional Airlines (Finland) for its passengers ....

.... just arrived at the gate has this Norwegian Boeing 737 ....

.... wíth Hans Christian Oersted as tailart ....

.... I pushed the button a moment too late for this Boeing 737 from Air Baltic (Latvia), taxiing to the runway ....

.... but here I got her right on time ....

.... push back for an Austrian Embraer 195 on its way home to Vienna ....

.... never saw this aircraft before, a Sukhoi Superjet 100 from Aeroflot, which just arrived in Vilnius ....

.... my bird of the day taxiing to Gate 11, Airbus A320-200 from Lufthansa (code D-AIUL) ....

.... safety first, our aircraft was completly de-iced from front to back. Sorry for the fuzzy photo, seat 20F had a dirty window ....

.... standing beside the taxiway I saw this Airbus A 310 from ULS Cargo (Turkey) ....

.... finally some in flight impressions ....

.... over northern Poland ....

.... and just minutes away from Frankfurt ....


There's not much traffic on a small airport like VNO within 2 hours, but I hope, you enjoyed flying with me. And now, as Damian said somwhere above "Back to the bench!"

Always happy landings!
Torsten

Torsten,

not a 'wingy thingy' but you have a photo of some, above:



1/72.

https://archive.kitmaker.net/news/30920

Thanks for posting, Fred. I live in Karlsruhe and believe it or not, every morning on my way to work I cross the gate of former Metz Feuerwehrgeräte GmbH Karlsruhe, who since a few years belong to Rosenbauer International AG. The name Metz is worldwide known to fire fighters. Today the company is called Rosenbauer Karlsruhe GmbH. Sorry, the side is only in german. I often see new fire fighting trucks standing there for so many different countries. Just a few days ago I waved hello to some czech fire fighters who proudly got their new red/white truck.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier "Back to the bench!" and finally I can show you my first finished model in 2019. It's the Saab JAS 39 A "Gripen" from Italeri in 1/48. Yes, another Saab ....





.... the Gripen was designed to replace the J35 Draken and the J37 Viggen in the Royal Swedish Air Force. First flight of the Gripen was in 1988 and after some changes it entered service in 1996. Upgraded variants, featuring more advanced avionics and adaptations for longer mission times, began entering service in 2003. The Gripen is powered by one Volvo Aero RM12 engine with a thrust of 80,5 kN with and 54 kN without afterburner. The maximum weight of the aircraft is 14.000 kg and the maximum speed is 2.130 km/h. The only internal weapon (only the single seater) is a Mauser BK 27 with 120 rounds (same as in the Eurofighter) but it can carry rockets and bombs on 6 hardpoints. The Gripen is also an international success. Beside Sweden it is also used in the air forces of Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa and Thailand. Brasil has placed an order for 36 Gripen which will be assembled at Embraer in Brasil, delivery starting in late 2018. But there are further nations interested in the aircraft. Probably Argentinia will buy some brazilian Gripen. Botswana also intends to buy the aircraft and Austria, Bulgaria, Finland and the Philippines are other interested nations ....






.... I have built aircraft "42" of Flygflottilj 7, based in Satenäs in southern central Sweden in 2010 ....





.... the Italeri kit is now about 15 years old and has quite some fitting issues. So there are some gaps to fill where the wings meet the fuselage and the canopy doesn't fill well to the fuselage. But the cockpit doesn't look good enough to be left open, so I closed it and fixed the canopy the best I could to the fuselage. The radome also doesn't fit well to the fuselage but after a lot of test fitting I can live with the result now. I've put fishing lead in the nose, not to have a tailsitter. So far the nose landing gear looks strong enough to carry the weight. After many fitting problems I had with it, now that the kit is finished, the Gripen looks fine to me. We will probably never see her fly with this ordnance but I put everything under the wings that this kit offers. So beside the centerline fuel tank we see the Saab Bofors-Diehl BGT-RBS 15 anti ship rocket (dark grey) and the Saab RB75 anti tank rocket (white). On the outsides of the wings are Saab RB74, a swedish licence of the AIM9 Sidewinder ....






.... Italeri offers 2 swedish decal versions for this kit and one for the Czech Air Force. Of course I have chosen one of the "Tre Kronor" birds. Though the decals are 15 years old now, they went on well and didn't give me problems, also didn't overturn. The paints I used came mainly from Vallejo and here I send a big thanks to Magnus Fridsell for his help to lead me into the right direction with the camouflage. For the underside I have used No. 71046 Pale Grey Blue, which comes close to FS 36473 and for the upperside I have chosen No. 71120 Dark Ghost Grey (FS 36320). I hope this comes close to the real deal. And as we all know it's always the metamerism of the paints that makes things look different in different lights. So I'm pretty satisfied with my painting result. There's another Gripen on my workbench right now. After a big paint desaster the twin seater will be ready in a few days.

Again I say "tack sa mycket!" for walking around the latest member of my "Plastic Air Force" and hope you've enjoyed it.

Happy modelling!
Torsten

That's beautiful, Torsten!

Gaz

Nicccceee Torsten! Just one question remains! When are you building a Viggen? I'm in the midst of putting one together (again I got it in pieces) as a commission build but I'm chickening out on the outstanding camo scheme they wore and going for the more mundane and less expensive two tone grey. I'd love to see you complete your Tour De Force of Saab aircraft. But more importantly I'm really interested in seeing your take on it.

Torsten! I'm happy to see it finished and you nailed the colours! Looking forward to the two-seater.



Magnus

Thanks for your feedback, guys!

Magnus, I'm glad that you like the way this Gripen came out finally. Thanks again for your help. It was really appreciated! The twin seater (I call it now "Springbok-Gripen") waits for the decals now. Everything should be done by next week.

Chris, great to hear that you are building a Viggen. Is it in 1/48? I've got my Stör Viggen (scroll down the page) in November and I'll avoid that splinter camo and will go for the same camo as on my Gripen above. But I have no plans when I build it. I guess the next jet that I'll build will not be a Saab ....
Talking about splinter camo, since early 2018 I have a norwegian Leopard 1 with 4-tone splinter camo on my bench and for this year I have plans to build the new finnish K9 "Moukari" howitzer, which has 3-tone splinter camo ....

Torsten

Already finished in the early February days I had no time to take photos of my other Gripen until yesterday. So now I can show you Part 2 of my latest dual build, the Saab JAS 39 D "Gripen", again from Italeri and as usual in 1/48 ....





.... this time I've built aircraft "01" of No. 2 Sqn "Flying Cheetahs" of the South African Air Force at the Makhado AFB in the Limpopo Province in the northwest of South Africa at the border to Botwana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. And I was right to choose this option - you'll see later ....





.... this kit has about the same age as the single seater but less fitting problems. So the fitting of the wings to the fuselage is slightly better, also the radome fits better to the fuselage. But there's still some sanding and filling to do. Not a kit to throw together on a rainy weekend ....





.... for painting this bird I have checked out some south african modelling forums and found out that the SAAF Gripens are painted in Grey FS 36375 and Dark Ghost Grey FS 36320, so nearly the same tones as on the swedish Gripen. For the underside and most part of the upperside I have used FS 36375 from Gunze (H308) and for the so called diamond camo I used again Dark Ghost Grey from Vallejo (71120) as on the swedish Gripen. And here the desaster started. About an hour after I had airbrushed Vallejo cracks came up all over the painted area. Never have seen this before on one of my models. I guess it is an incompatibility between the alcohol based Gunze paint and the water based Vallejo paint. Though I have sprayed Gunze before christmas and Vallejo after my return from Vilnius 2 weeks later. The alcohol should have been gone by then. Anyway, the only chance I had to rescue the model from the bin was to take off the paint again with methylated spirit and paint it all again. I thought only to paint Vallejo again but some of the spirit went under the masks and destroyed the Gunze paint also. So I had to paint both paints twice but this time Vallejo first and Gunze afterwards. This time it worked. So another lesson learned. Never, never, never paint Vallejo over Gunze! I've taken some photos of this accident and you can see that the white primer stayed on the model nearly unharmed. It's the primer (water based) we produce in our company to use on wood panels and I tested it some time ago on my plastic models. Works perfect and I need only a small amount of it ....





.... Italeri offers 4 decal versions for the twin seater. Swedish AF, Czech AF, Hungarian AF und this SAAF. The paint instructions are correct in the plan but the "Low Viz" decals are printed in the wrong colour! If one of the colours is Dark Ghost Grey you cannot print the decals in the came Dark Ghost Grey, otherwise you have not "Low Viz" but "No Viz" decals .... The number "01" should be darker like on this photo of the original bird. But the decal is on, I swear! You just can't see it. So I left the stecils which should be on the diamond, they won't be seen either. But on the other hand the rest of the decals worked fine and I had no problems with them ....





.... for the ordnance Italeri offers here only air-to-air missiles and the SAAF uses Kentron Darter missiles on their Gripen. The kits parts should look a bit like them.

I thank you again for stepping in and walking around yet another Saab (it's my 6th Saab finished .... ) and hope you've enjoyed it. Any comments are welcomed as usual.

Happy modelling!
Torsten

Still have to figure out how I will show this duet on the coming expos. Wether side by side ....




.... or tip to tip ....




What do you think? In any case they will be an eye catcher on my table ....

I would take a "concrete" plate 3 or 4 times that big, and line the planes as if on a real airport with the approporate markings on the conctrete etc...