1/48 Eduard J-35 Draken

I love the Draken! It was one of the world’s first aircraft to supercruise (i.e. go supersonic without using afterburner).  A brilliant design and what a lovely shape!  I am looking forward to your build!

Things to watch for include the fit of the intake lips and fairings for the gun, and the odd “pinch” where the tailcone attaches to the fuselage.  The intakes foul on the fuselage halves, so the surfaces where they touch need to be trimmed down.  The gun inserts are a little short, but sanding down the mating surfaces of the upper/lower fuselage halves should allow the fit to come close.  The tailcone fix is harder without the use of filler.

Oh and an odd note on the trailing edges of the real Draken’s wings - they have a vertical face!  Kind of like the stabilators on an X-15.  So don’t try thinning the kit’s trailing edges.  The real deal is basically the upper and lower skins coming together with an inset tapering vertical spacer.  But it would be hard to carve out a tapered recess in the kit parts.

Thanks for the tips! They are always appreciated.

Which kit are you referring to? I am not sure whos kit Eduard used for their limited edition version. The intakes on my kit required some minor work to fit, But were very close fitting to begin with. The version I am building does not have the gun ports. But the parts that fit on the leading edge fit very well. For the tail cone the mold of the part was slightly unlevel. I was able to lightly sand the mating edge flat to get it to fit without putty. Especially just under the rudder was where the gap was the worst.

For the trailing edge Eduard must have realized the vertical spacers between them and they provided photo etch parts for the wings and tail trailing edges to represent this.

I did most of the fuselage detailing and assembly last night. I have some more details to add to the fuselage and then I can start on the landing gear. I will post pictures later this week. I will take a close up of the trailing edge with the photo etch parts so others can see what we are talking about.

The Eduard edition is the Hasegawa kit. I'm a Draken and Viggen fan, and I plan to build the kit myself someday, so I'll be following this. Best wishes for your project!

For the intakes, the outer walls interfere with the fuselage halves, so they rotate out of alignment.  The vee splitter on the fuselage on the left side also needs to be trimmed so the intake can seat tightly to the fuselage.

If your gun blanking inserts fit with no step, then you are lucky.  All four inserts in my kit were shorter in height compared to the fuselage cutouts.

The tail cone issue is caused by sink marks from the internal bulkhead and I think there is a tooling error where the cone and fuselage do not have the same contour.

Interesting that Eduard caught the trailing edge detail.

Still, it’s a lovely kit.  I hope Hasegawa do a AJ-37 Viggen eventually.  I was not wowed by the Tarangus kit.

Real G

For the intakes, the outer walls interfere with the fuselage halves, so they rotate out of alignment.  The vee splitter on the fuselage on the left side also needs to be trimmed so the intake can seat tightly to the fuselage.

If your gun blanking inserts fit with no step, then you are lucky.  All four inserts in my kit were shorter in height compared to the fuselage cutouts.

The tail cone issue is caused by sink marks from the internal bulkhead and I think there is a tooling error where the cone and fuselage do not have the same contour.

Interesting that Eduard caught the trailing edge detail.

Still, it’s a lovely kit.  I hope Hasegawa do a AJ-37 Viggen eventually.  I was not wowed by the Tarangus kit.

 

I had none of the issues you had with the intakes. They fit very well. The only trimming I had to do was a little flash on the bottom half of the fuselage.

For the tail cone there were no sink marks interferring with the mating. I just had the tail cone mating surface was not level especially under the tail. Once sanded it fit very well. Actuallu I have not had to use any putty except a few small spots where the parts were trimmed from the sprue tree.

Looking good.

I like it!

Excellent detail on the seat!

Impressive, most impressive.