a scary SAAB

[Viking]

one of my biggest modelling disappontments in recent years was this Saab Viggen. Its the current Hasegawa kit, issued as a special marking edition of the ghost viggen retirement scheme. i had been after the markings for a while and, of course, all hasegawa kits are wonderful; aren't they ? yeah right ! in the euphoria of Hasegawa kits of recent years, we tend to forget that they make / made some real dross and this is one of them. hard brittle plastic that is impossible to sand, raised panel lines, fit gaps that are equal to anything airfix ever did and no detail in engine exhaust, cockpit or whell wheel, not to mention ejection marks all over. As you can guess, i was not impressed. Anyway; i put it together without much care and no filler as i wanted to show the bad gaps and didnt want to sand away too much of the panel lines. mostly Humbrol 33 red and satin varnish. decals mainly worked ok, except the big ghosts underneath which didnt really confrom to the strakes; probably better to add the strakes after the decals and paint the white and some silvering on the long logo decal.

so; does anyone do a good kit of the Viggen ?

[Stamford]

This is a gap in the market. The best offering is said to be the Heller kit.

[JamesPerrin]

That is quite impressively basic as a kit. The markings are very interesting though.

The Matchbox kit I seem to remember being pretty good. One of their 'good panel line' kits and maybe easier to get hold of than the Heller.

[Saxon]

In 1/48 Airfix and Esci do a Viggen although I haven't built either.

In 1/72 Matchbox, Airfix and Heller do them in Fighter, Recce and 2 seat trainer versions and are all quite good.

Not your fault at all but for a special marking scheme it is somewhat plain, I always liked the blue and yellow one on the box art of the Airfix 1/48 version.

http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op= ... 490&page=1;

[Lyell72planes]

Interesting markings. Orange is a difficult colour to apply. Lyell

[gengriz]

The Airfix kit is a real dog; its based on the 2 early prototype aircraft, so doesn't have quite the right lumps and bumps, esp on the upper spine, plus it really doesn't fit together well, and you can't physically fit some of the larger weapons to the pylons without some hacking. The Frog kit is very similar (if not identical) to the Hasegawa offering, and likewise based on the prototype. :(

[MerlinJones]

I thought the Airfix 1:48 kit was a re-popped Otaki.

The 1/72 is very much a lesser product of the time and the Matchbox is way better.
The FROG is the Hasegawa.

The Heller is to the Matchbox what the Matchbox is to the Aifix and is well worth seeking out.
The Matchbox also became the trainer version, which is relatively hard to find as a mainstream kit subject.

Regards,
Bruce

[spitfire31]

There's a persistent rumour of a 1:32nd Viggen coming from the East, with hints of a downscaled 1:48th version, too. That's supposed to be the reason that Two Mikes stopped production of their 1:48th resin updates.

Otherwise the Heller kit is mostly OK for production version Viggens. The intakes are wrong, though, but there are several very nice resin upgrades (intakes, wheels, cockpit, etc.) available from Maestro Models (http://www.rebell.com;) along with a magnificently detailed tail end from Dr. Pepper Resins.

The Hasegawa kit represents an early prototype and would involve an insane amount of work to upgrade to production status.

/Joachim