Airfix (Heller) 1/72 Saab J-29 Tunnan

AIRFIX (HELLER) 1:72 SAAB J-29 TUNNAN

Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster) (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted: May 2009

Kit Details:

Kit number 03065 - Airfix Series 1 - 1/72 Saab Tunnan (reboxing of Heller Kit)

Aircraft History:

Initially, the Saab 29 was developed as a straight winged fighter with the De Havilland Goblin turbojet powerplant. But after the second world war, following on from captured and available German researched technology, the type was revised with 25° swept flying surfaces. It then first flew in 1948 and was given the apt name of Tunnan (barrel) when it entered service in 1951.

The Tunnan had a shoulder-set wing, tricycle landing gear, and a pressurised cockpit with ejection seat. The first aircraft reached operational units later in that same year, and production of 661 aircraft, of different variants, continued until 1956. The Tunnan remained as Sweden's main air defence asset until 1958 when it was replaced by the more fighter looking Saab 32 Lansen.

The main variants included the J 29A fighter; J 29B improved model with increased fuel storage; A 29B attack version; J 29D experimental version with a reheat system; J 29F improved version of the J 29E and an A 29F attack version of the J 29F. The main two variants used (and depicted in this kit) were the J 29E improved fighter version with reheated engine from the J 29D and saw toothed outer wing panels and the S 29C photo-reconnaissance model with an automatic six camera installation and the outer wing panels of the J 29E.

Preamble:

This is one of those rare circumstances where I am building a kit I have already built before. Usually I only build an aircraft... let alone an actual kit once, and never again with only a few exceptions. My situation of not having access to my built kits (they are all in boxes in the garage because of space and living in country reasons) and my unbuilt stash (the only ones I have access to are the ones I have purchased since living in Whyalla) meant I had actually forgotten I had already done this kit - well the Heller version anyway. So I went into this project without reading my previous review, and doing the research etc all over again. At the end of the project I thought deja vu was pretty strong, and it was interesting to compare my two articles. I ended up copying over the aircraft history, but the rest of what appears below is genuinely a newly written article without knowledge of my previous one. Interestingly, I found out a bit more about inaccuracy of the Heller kit - a few years does make a difference!

The Kit:

Other than the box, decals and instructions there is no real attempt to disguise this kit's origins as a Heller one. The first give away is a kit on sprues in an Airfix box and the second is the Heller stamp on the fuselage interior. There are four sprues of a light grey-blue injection molded plastic. There are just over 30 parts plus a couple of typically distorted Heller clear parts on a separate small sprue. The panel lines are scribed in raised lines and there is a reasonable amount of surface detail but nothing to write home about, with ports and ducts either very shallow or blanked over. Two underfuselage panels at the nose are provided depending on which version you wish to build. Whilst the plastic is soft there is virtually no flash on any of the parts but the sprue lugs are the type which gouge the plastic if the parts are not surgically removed, and there are a few minor ejector pin marks and sink holes on the plastic.

Instructions:

A four paged A4 booklet makes up the instructions and a separate double sided sheet shows decal and painting guide. Only three pages are used for this kit, of which two are taken up by aircraft history and modelling overview in several languages. Page 3 is dedicated to the construction step - yep just one step which makes the assembly look very busy. A couple of inset diagrams are provided. In spite of this it should be relatively straightforward to follow, but I much prefer the assembly laid out in a number of steps - the hard part say for a beginner is where to start! One assembly step also means you are only looking at the aircraft from one side, giving you the corresponding numbers for the other side of the aircraft - but having said this one thing I did like which I haven't seen before is that it provides a key - P=port and S=starboard so you know which numbered part goes where. As usual detail painting is provided but in Humbrol numbers only, and when mixed in with all the part numbers (although clearly different) it makes the assembly step look even busier!

Construction:

Construction starts in the cockpit which calls for the same Olive Drab camouflage for the interior, bar the back wall of the cockpit tub in a dark green. The rudimentary seat is painted aluminium with an olive drab head rest, and the y shaped control column is also painted aluminium. In the absence of any reference material stating to the contrary I followed the kit's advice. The cockpit is made up of tub in which goes a control column and seat, a separate instrument panel with very generic raised dial detail is also supplied. There is no other detail provided, a small lump supposedly represents the throttle. I used the kits parts, painted up as best as possible and secured it on the side of the fuselage interior.

Because the assembly step is just one big drawing, a fair bit of planning in making sure I did everything in the right order was needed. Along with this, very careful removal of the parts from the sprue, since the lugs as mentioned above are on the thick side. A combination of sprue cutters and slicing away the lug with a #11 blade was needed. I decided that the way I would do the assembly was install the cockpit, then the exhaust pipe and then close the fuselage halves. There is an additional exhaust pipe underpiece extension that extends at the bottom of the fuselage section - what the instructions don't tell you is that this is only for the S-29C Swedish version, not the Austrian. This was very difficult to get right, having to fiddle around with test fits, match it up against references and so on. One side is wider than the other, so I am not sure if the extension is supposed to narrow or widen out, the only way I could get this part on the fuselage was having the wider part attach, so the extension narrows outward.

The fuselage halves fit together very well, and a couple of rubber bands and pegs was all that was needed. The delicate part of this operation is the nose, it really needs to line up right and mate together seamlessly. I installed the nose ring and trunk assembly and this held the nose together well. There are tiny alignment pins on the nose ring to ensure it is orientated the right way. However, there was still no escaping the fact that the nose ring to fuselage would need a hefty sanding session!

There is still a large forward fuselage lower panel section to put on, which has the nosewheel bay. There are two of these panels supplied in the kit, one for the Austrian version and one for the Swedish. Clear pieces are supplied for the landing light which can be deployed or retracted and a couple of panels in the forward section. I painted these little bays aluminium before installing the covers over the top, all fits pretty well. I also carefully installed closed nose gear doors.

However, the whole panel is an awful fit, it seems that the panel width is larger than the fuselage width. I initially thought I did the wrong thing installing the nose trunk/ring but that width is fixed so that could not have upset the balance here. After test fitting and filing components down I managed a good fit, but several gaps needed putty and sanding, which also meant losing a fair bit of panel line detail.

The main wings are upper and lower halves with a small wraparound fence at the leading edge alongside the dog tooth. I played around with the parts and found it was easy to get all these bits mixed up, so use the pitot tubes as a guide, they aren't the upper and lower half of the same wing [apparently]! The fences are also designed to go on the correct wing, not too hard as there is a small indent to apply against the dog tooth. I had put the project aside whilst working on another one and couldn't remember which main wing was starboard or port, they both fitted in the slots on both sides, the outline of where the underwing pylon is affixed saved me from putting the wrong fence of the wrong wing.

Anyway the wings fit very snugly. The tailplane is one-piece with a slot in the middle where you effectively slide it across the tail fin. In spite of small alignment pins, this is not a very good fit, and you need to make sure it dries in the correct position lest you have the tailplanes looking diagonal!

The only stores option is a pair of underwing tanks which I decided to leave off. The main gear doors fit like a glove over the bays which are pretty much devoid of detail. The final component for me was to affix the canopy which comes in two parts, and again with a bit of care, fits almost perfectly. Construction of this kit was pretty quick.

Colour Schemes:

The kit allows for two versions to be produced, one being a Swedish reconnaissance S-29C, 3rd Sqn, F11 Wing, Nykoping, 1969 in an upper Olive Green/Dark Blue camouflage over chrome silver, with wide black panels on the underwing sides. The second example is an Austrian J-29F, 1 Jabostaffel, Linz-Horsching, 1972 in overall chrome silver with fire orange tips on wings, tailplane and rudder. While the Austrian example was tempting, I couldn't ignore the Swedish version. I followed the Humbrol numbers given in the instructions which was H11 Silver undersides with H155 Olive Drab and H96 RAF Blue disruptive camouflage upper. I wasn't too sure about the Blue, but I laid it down as the under coat and added the Olive afterwards. The camouflage looked pretty unique actually, and something other than the boring natural metal finish these planes often had.

Decals:

The fairly large decal sheet has a semi-gloss finish and the decals appear quite thin on the paper with huge Austrian and Swedish roundels. As with most Airfix decals, everything looks pretty good on paper, the register is sharp but I am always wary of bleed through and white edging effects etc once you begin applying their decals, I sort of have a love/hate relationship with Airfix decals! There's very little stencilling provided, not that I think this aircraft had much of them, and I was also surprised to find that the upper wings have no [swedish] roundels on them. For once I was very happy with the Airfix decals, they went on very well and other than a bit of blurry details on the smaller stencils that were provided, there wasn't any noticeable bleed through or edging on the Swedish roundels. They went on very nicely without any issues using a dob of Gunze Sangyo decal setting solution.

Accuracy:

The main difference between the two versions is that the tailpipe extension is only for the S.29C Swedish kit, which as mentioned above, the instructions don't tell you other than in the colour schemes where this part is clearly missing from the Austrian F example. The J.29E was upgraded with a new afterburner so the F did not have this extension. Early J.29s including the S.29C did not have the dog tooth wing but as Kevin Ronayne points out in his review this was retrospectively fitted to most S.29Cs, so the kit is reasonably accurate in this regard. The main issue with this kit is that the F has a larger exhaust section, so this kit inaccurately depicts the smaller exhaust of earlier versions. It lacks detail and has a few minor shape errors but overall a reasonably convincing replica. If I was to give Airfix their due kudos, it is that they have produced a kit example that is accurate to the version including painting. From my recollection, Heller didn't do this.

Overall Recommendation:

The recommendations that apply to the Heller kit apply here also - in a nutshell, it is the only game in town and is generally a straightforward and nice kit to build. And I have no problems in recommending it to all and sundry. In the choice of which to buy, Airfix or Heller, it comes down to price and packaging. The molds are certainly a little more aged in the Airfix kit, and not as easy to put together as the Heller one, BUT, still a straight forward kit especially for those who have built a few kits. For me the decision sways to Airfix because of the subject choices, and more up to date instructions and the decal sheet was a hundred times better than Heller's. The price also had a part to play - the Heller kit was free courtesy of my long time friend Jon, in the USA, the Airfix kit was only $9 (albeit heavily reduced on sale at the local hobby shop)!

web hosting • domain names
web design • online games