Revell has a great collection of 1/72 modern jets. The
Phantom, Tornado and F-16 are some of the very the best you’ll find. Recently, Revell released
yet another jet in this scale: the Saab Gripen. François, our all-round
modeller builds the kit out of the box for us.
Review build: Saab
JAS-39C Gripen
Revell of Germany
Kit# 04999
1/72nd Scale
Number of parts: 116
Decal set with markings for 2 aircraft:
- JAS-39C
Gripen – 211Sqn Czech Air Force “Tigermeet 2014”
- JAS-39C
Gripen – F17 Swedish Air Force at Nellis AFB, Red Flag 2013
François picked the Tigermeet bird, with a spectacular
design on the vertical tail and on the canards. It was one of the coolest
designs of the meet!
The griffon's tail
Right, let’s get started! There’s just over 100 parts in
this kit, which is a lot for such a small kit. It is just 20 cm long and a
little over 12 cm wide. And like with all kits, François started with the
cockpit. This is a nice little cockpit that doesn’t take too much time to
paint. François added some straps to the seat.
The fuselage is built up out of 4 parts, so lining them up
needs to be done with care. Go to fast and you’ll need a little putty to get it
right. When the finished cockpit is placed in the fuselage, François noticed a
gap at the back. This needed to be attended to in a later stage.
The assembly of the fuselage, wings and air intakes needs a
little adjusting. There was a little flash on the outer areas of the wings,
which is unusual with a new tool kit. A second copy of the kit that we bought
in our LHS had no flash at all, so I goes we were unlucky with our first kit.
Adjusting the upper fuselage resulted in a slight
misalignment on the lower fuselage. Even though this area won’t be seen, it
meant that some more was to be done.
Some putty on upper and lower fuselage ensured a smooth
joint between the fuselage and wing parts.
With the work on the fuselage done, François gave the kit a
little layer of paint to check for flaws. After this, he gave the entire kit
some primer.
Convinced that everything look right, François got his
airbrush out to start the painting. In order get some depth to the tiny kit,
the panel lines got some pre-shading.
The first layer to go on is Revell Aqua Color n° 43 Mittelgrau. Like always, this goes quite easily.
Basically, it takes longer to clean the airbrush than to paint the kit...
The lighter grey areas of the camouflage are sprayed with a
mix of Mittelgrau and White. This is also used to liven up the fuselage by
giving some panels a lighter shade.
Some extra weathering was done with differet shades and
finally with Tamiya smoke before a final layer of gloss varnish was applied,
prior to the decals being placed.
Decal time! The most spectacular decal is the very nicely
printed tail decal with the tiger/skull.
The canards are adorned with the left and right part of a
skull. These decals are very nicely designed and printed by Revell. François
had no difficulty with the decals; they could be handled easily on the model
and set nicely into lines and shapes.
Now, all the little details and weapons went onto the Gripen.
She started to look pretty good by now!
Drop tanks, recce pod
on the centreline, AMRAAMs and Sidewinders went on.
So, there you have
it: one Gripen done! A little kit of a nice looking modern jet!
Nice little thing,
let’s make a couple of extra photos...
And here is the same
photo on a background as a simple mock up
This new Revell kit didn’t get a lot of attention so far,
but it really is a nice addition to the company’s wonderful range of modern day
jet fighters. It is not the easiest one, but neither is their F-16 or Tornado
and still, they are probably the best around. The breakdown of the kit makes me
wonder when the two-seat version of the Gripen will be available...
You need to take care when building this kit but take your
time and dry-fit everything before you glue the parts and you will have a great
looking 1/72 kit. The Gripen has flown in a lot of colourful liveries, so after
market companies will probably give you an even wider choice of decals.
Good job Revell!
Francois Laloux
Thanks to Revell of Germany for sending this kit for us to review and build - Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For details visit www.revell.de/en
