1/48 Tarangus Viggen

[JFVicente]

Good morning,everybody! I received this kit from one of the co-owners of Tarangus few weeks ago with the task of preparing a review of it and a kind of “quick build”. First of all and to be honest I must say that I have been for some time now related with this guy collaborating with him on some prejects. Anyhow, I will try to be as neutral as possible with my opinions on this review.

What arrived to me was not a definitive production example, but a development test shot, in which one can find some defects. As has been said to me they have been working to correct them. Hence the delays that have been producing on its release date.

On the box that I received I found six big sprues and two little sprues of gray colored plastic, a little clear sprue was present too wich is slightly blurred. At first glance the surface of some of the big parts is slightly rough, but nothing really heavy. Some shrinking is also found on some of the largest parts like the fuselage halves. This last probably because they have extracted the sprues from the moulds too soon. As positive one can say that the existence of ejection pin marks is almost void.

Here is look of the parts:

This A sprue contains the upper fuselage halve, the nose cone and the tailfin for the JA version, the cockpit tube and the instrument panel for the other versions different from the JA , the underfuselage pylon and on the top left corner a couple of vent exhust and two little parts that depicts the

Following was a sprue containing a couple of ejection seats consisting of five parts each, two control sticks and two pairs of rudder pedals.

Next sprue C: left canard, lower wings half, right main wheel well, one little fin for the underfuselage tank, air intakes trunk and the front part of the air intakes (one of them is loosen from the sprue on this photo)

Next sprue D: on this sprue we have the lower fuselage halve, left main wheel well, both upper halfwings, the right canard and another little fin for the underbelly fuel tank. On the left lower corner there are two little parts related to the main undercarriage legs. At left of the fuselage half there is an almost formless part that is one of the underfuselage side armament pylons. On this test shot example that part is almost useless, as its form is totally wrong and lacks any kind of detail. I have been said that this is one of the things that they have been correcting on this time.

Sprue E contains the exhaust nozzle, the trust reversers area and another circular piece used to connect both parts. Also both front wheel, right rear fuselage half, half fuel tank (intended for versions different from JA ), the two inner main landing gear doors (which used to be closed when the aircraft is on the ground) and four little circular pieces intented to be used on the main landing wheels. Also you can see an oval piece that is intended to be placed at the rear end of the intakes trunk and which will help to join the front and rear fuselages, with the extension of the fuselage between them for the JA version. And That little almost rectangular part on the left of the main wheel doors is the cover that is displaced when the tail fin is folded, so looks that some provision for installing a finfold improvement set has been done.

Sprue F: contains the left rear fuselage half, the four airbrakes, eight half main wheels, the three trust reversers, the ventral fin, two halves of the rear fuselage exhausts, the scisors link for the front landing gear, two scissor links for the main legs, that pair of triangular parts, wich are the end of the trust reversers area, a little antenna, and a couple of side consoles for the cockpit. Also you can find the other half of the auxiliary fuel tank, not suitable for the JA version.

Sprue G: on top left two parts to form the intake scope under the fuselage, the auxiliary fuel tank for the JA, the front landing gear strut and its connecting strut, the four fins for the JA ventral fuel tank, the compressor face, and on bottom left two little parts that links the air intakes to the upper fuselage. Omitted in my kit are the lower ones. At right of the thank, the nose gear doors, the arms of the main landing gear, the two doors of the main gear and the pitot tube. To the right, the two main landing struts, the front landing gear bay, above this, the two extra actuators for the JA version and on the upper a lot of tiny parts related to the main landing gear and a couple of parts to conform the characteristic vents of the fuselage of the Viggen. The rest of the pieces on the right are even more parts of the landing gear and another couple of vents.

Sprue I contains specific parts for the JA version: the underfuselage cannon with its nozzle separately, the antenna on the rear of the fuselage of the JA, the IP and the cockpit tube. And that oval part is the fuselage extension specific of this version.

And finally K sprue corresponds to the clear parts: windshield and canopy, several landing and position lights and a piece to represent the HUD.

I received no instructions nor decals so I can,t comment about them.

More to follow...

Edited November 6, 2014 by JFVicente

[Jennings]

Nice! Anything's got to be better than that ancient Esci beast!

[JFVicente]

Nice! Anything's got to be better than that ancient Esci beast!

Hi Jennings. You are right. In fact this kit is far better than the old Esci.

Rgds.

Juan

[JFVicente]

In all that sprues look very promising, altough one would have expected a better level of suface detail, wich on some parts is slightly innacurate too. I feel that this kit is really well engineered, as preliminary dry-fittting test promised a very straight forward buildind and looks like the need of filling products will be minimal.

Ok. Now I am going to make a “fake build”, i.e. I will assemble the kit not in the usual way, but will attach the parts only with little drops of glue and/or other materials like blue tack or masking tape to be able to disassemble later and work on it more carefully. So let see how it builds.

I started to work on it before having received the instructions, so I take my own route with. I started by glueing both nose cone parts. Included on the kit is a passable depiction of the pitot tube that I managed to lose, so I will replace it with a brass turned one. Fit was good and only a little touch of filler was necessary across the joint line and to fill a little sinking on the front end:

Almost the same can be said respecting the drop tank:

Next I attached the airbrakes on the upper fuselage halves. Those leave a noticeable gap, so here we will need an amount of filler and sanding:

Also some ugly shink marks are present on the rear spine.

I glued the main landing gear vanes to the lower wings half. They fit without any problem:

Close up of the nice vanes:

Then I attached the two upper half wings to the lower part. This fit is also good and anly a minimal sanding on the leading and trailing edges is necessary, overall on those late as they are slightly thicker to scale.

This is the intake trunk assembled and reinforced with a part that is intended to be attached on the rear of it:

Detail view of the compressor face:

Attached on its place at the end of the trunk:

Then I started with the cockpit. Here is the ejection seat that consists of five parts. It look fine just from the box, but can be enhanced by adding some seat belts and other details by scractch.

More to follow...

[JFVicente]

The cockpit tube, with the control stick, the throttle and another little stick (that commands the radar antenna, if I am correct) on the left console. Also attached are the control pedals. As said with the seat, this cockpit is a good representation from the box and a good basis for enhancement.

On the downside, the rear of the cockpit is a plain bulkhead that could benefit from some detail.

Close pic of the controlpedals to show the beatifull detail:

The ejection seat fits on place without problem:

Attached the front instrument panel on its place:

Yes, mistakenly I used the AJ panel instead of the JA that you can see on the following pic. Also a nice representation from the box.

The cockpit fitted in place with another console installed on the right side:

And the corresponding console on the left:

Here the full cockpit, including the seat:

Next step was attaching both upper and lower fuselage halves, having previuosly inserted the inake trunk. This join, if done carefully will result on a fine seam line, that will not need of any filer, just light sanding, thought my kit depicts a light shinking on the side of the intakes and the detail is slightly soft.

More to follow...

[JFVicente]

I also find that the panel lines of the avionic and equipment vanes are strangely represented. The lower demarcation should be parallel to the upper, giving a rectangular door, instead of being diagonal. Also some more hatches and details, like navigation light are missing. One must be rescribing this details…

That squared holes that you can see are the alignment point for the canards.

As seen on previous pic I installed the intake vent of the lower fuselage:

Looking closely to the next picture you can see the extension plug for the JA version installed on place:

On the front end of the fuselage one must install a bulkhead provided to help to fit the nose cone in place:

Here the front of the intake installed. I didn,t take care of preparing the matting surfaces, but if done carefully will produce a neat joint that will not need of any filler…

And here the right intake installed. I have been not able to take a better picture, but the compressor face is barely visible at the end of the intake duct.

As seen the edge of the intakes could benefit of some sanding to thin them.

Rear fuselage halves joined,

Only a bit of sanding will be needed on the rear end of this assembly to smooth the seam line:

Then I glued both front and rear fuselage parts together.

Some care will be necessary to align the panels around this matting area and the extension plug:

MTF

[erik_g]

I guess those hideous sink marks is one of the reason why we had to wait a bit longer. I hope they are fixed on the released kit.

No seat arming lever on the ejection seat? The lever is quite prominent on the real deal, as a large black lever that is folded in between the head rest cushions when armed, and protrudes from the side of the head rest when safe.

Nice out-of-the-box review, thanks!

[Jennings]

I think you mean "gear bays" or "gear wells" vs. "gear vanes" :)

[JFVicente]

Hi again!

I guess those hideous sink marks is one of the reason why we had to wait a bit longer. I hope they are fixed on the released kit.

No seat arming lever on the ejection seat? The lever is quite prominent on the real deal, as a large black lever that is folded in between the head rest cushions when armed, and protrudes from the side of the head rest when safe.

Nice out-of-the-box review, thanks!

No Erik. That ejection seat arming lever is not present on the kit. I suppouse the is such a tiny part that is not easy to be reprroduced on injected plastic. Anyhow it can be easily reproduced by scratch...

I think you mean "gear bays" or "gear wells" vs. "gear vanes" :)/>/>/>

You are right again, Jennings. I meant bays or wells, don,t know why I wrote vane...

Continuing.

Here we have both canards. Is evident at a glance that are incorrect, as the separation line between the fixed part and the elevons should be more forward and at different angle. More or less like the line drawn by pencil on the right one:

Aside of that The canards of the JA version have two vortex generators, so one is omitted. I have been assured that this canards is one of the corrections that they have been doing at this test shot.

Here we have the parts that conform the exhaust/reversers area.

And a close shot to one reverser to show the nice detail:

Here we have the rear reverser part attached to the ring that connects it with the rest of the fuselage. That rectangular depression ahead of the rectangular panel doesn,t exist on the real thing (or I can,t see it on my references), so I would fill it and sand smooth the area.

Thrust reversers installed, the upper one hanging down and the two remaining plain on its place. Some ejection marks are visible, so some more filler is envisaged:

I would suggest to install the ring on first instance and then the reversers, as this will help to precisely positioning them, overall the upper that is a slightly tricky to have it on place and secure.

And here the mentioned subassembly attached to the afterburner duct:

Here the previous subassembly installed inside the fuselage.

As seen in the next pic it leaves a little gap as I have only used a tiny drop of CA glue to retain both parts joined, but if you use liquid glue and keep the parts pressed togheter you can end up without any gap.

Also a little gap on the hump is visible, that will need a bit of filler.

[JFVicente]

Wings attached to the fuselage. If pressing the fuselage sides against the wings and use any extra thin cement will not be necessary the use of any filler.

A couple of close ups where you can see the fit of that parts and the filler that I have had to use to fill the gap around the airbrakes and on the shink marks of the spine

And attached are the canards planes.

Also if you take some care with them no filler wil be necessary:

And the same goes for the nose cone:

At this point one can install the underbelly cannon:

And the various vents around the fuselage. This parts will need some filler to blend them with the body:

On the last pic you can also see a little antenna, fairly well reproduced.

Continuing

Edited November 6, 2014 by JFVicente

[JFVicente]

Tailfin installed. As seen, the root of pitot is quite inaccurate and the pitot itself is crude representation, so some resahaping will be necessary and the tube could be replaced by a turned one.

Now, one can install on the left side that little hinged door that opens when the tailfin is folded, to complete the airframe.

A couple of little details must be installed on the rear fuselage: the blade aerial which is absurdly thick and that must be thinned and those little tubes just beneath the rudder, protruding forward:

Underbelly fuel tank on place.

[JFVicente]

Time to work on the main landing gear, and I must say that for this time fortunately I had received a preliminary copy of the instructions and I was able to undertake such assembly. As know, the undercarriage on the real aircraft is a quite complicated issue and it has been so good reproduced on the kit that one find a good lot of tiny parts for each main leg. Here you can see the layout of the parts for one single leg. It comprises no less than twelve parts:

Some of them are really thiny rod shaped, so you must take good care to remove and clean excess plastic on them.

Lets see how the gear builds step by step. Firstly the main vertical leg attached to the swing arms where the wheels will go:

Next, the scissor link glued on the front:

Two more braces glued parallel to the main arm:

A tinny rod glued diagonally from the swinging brace to the main vertical one:

Next what I did was to temporally glue the gear on its position on the bay to be able to attach the rest of the parts, as they link the said gear with the door or with the airframe:

Glued a little rod to the vertical leg and “floating" by its other extreme:

On the next pic you can see a strut that joins the door with the horizontal brace of the main leg. As seen there are two prominet ejection marks on the door that will need some care.

And then another tiny rod connecting the whole assembly with the door:

And finally the brace that was floating free by one of its extreme was joined to the floor of the gear bay:

Continuing

[JFVicente]

In all the assembly is a nice rendition of the original, although they have missed a little almost triangular box that goes attached on the apex formed by the horizontal arm and the diagonal strut, but this can be easily reproduced by scratch. And with some wiring and careful painting you will end with a nice landing gear.

The main wheels are also a nice rendition of the originals, tough the detail is slightly soft. They consist of two halves plus a little part that depicts a little hub and the axis of the wheel. In my opinion this wheels, once assembled are quite thin. This can be easily solved by sandwiching some thin styrene between both halves, but the you will need to replace the provided axis as it will be short for you widened wheel. On the following pic we have the original wheel on the left and a widened wheel on the right with the mentioned axis enlarged.

I think that the difference is quite evident.

In the following series of photos we can see the complete main landing gears to good effect:

The front landing gear is much easy, consisting of only three parts and the two wheels:

On the negative side one can say that the wheels are completely devoid of any detail…

Then, one can install the landing gears. This is the main with all the doors open. As we all know the big doors on this gear is kept closed on the ground and only opened for maintenance purposes. Anyway I have attached them on the open position to show the detail on the bay:

Front landing leg is easily attached on its place too, with the doors and the actuating arms:

On the Viggen there are a couple of landing lights fitted into the front gear bay, that are reproduced by clear parts on the kit(barely visible on the photo), but they have omitted a third light that goes on the landing leg, so this must be built from scratch.

Continuing

[JFVicente]

Included on the kit are a number of little clear parts to depict navigation/position lights, like this two that you can see on the belly close to the gun pod and at the rear of the front landing gear bay, although they are not related to this version of the Viggen. They are to be glued on little recesses on the plastic that must be filled if you are not using said lights:

And here is it, complete with the canopy parts and standing on its legs:

An important warning: not that this kit is strictly a tail sitter, but on mine, once standing on its legs, the front gear was not in contact with the base and was about a mm raised. Only when I intalled the seat and the clear parts the front wheel touch the ground again... So I would recommend to install some weight on the nose cone to avoid this.

In all I feel that this is a good kit. It has its faults, of course and some better detail could be expected nowadays. But the construction is quite straightforward and without any complications. Highly recommended in my opinion.

Don,t hesitate to ask if you have any question. I hope this review will be useful.

Rgds.

Juan

[Jennings]

Given that this is a test shot, it looks great. Also given that we're not likely to see Hasegawa or GWH doing a Viggen any time soon, this may well be it for our lifetimes.

[Aigore]

Really nice review, juan :D

The model looks fantastic with a few minor issues here and there....

what I hope to see added to the end product is:

A JA specific rear exhaust (with the series of slanted holes)

Antennae for all versions (the Di has big slanted blade antennas for example)

LAU-128 launchers

Boz countermeasure strakes for the wings

position lights moved to the wing tips instead of in the base of the radar warner pods.

separate flaps and ailerons for the main wing and the canards would have veen nice.

[phantomdriver]

Must try and grab one at Telford on Saturday....

[ya-gabor]

Must try and grab one at Telford on Saturday....

You lucky one to be able to do so!!!

Best regards

Gabor

The kit looks nice, OK there are points on it here and there but, But, BUT it will build into a Viggen, a real Viggen and not the ESCI thing!

[Jennings]

Is the kit even available? This was a test shot, right? No decals, no instructions, no box...

[MoFo]

The kit is out and available for sale in Sweden (at least, maybe elsewhere in Europe).

I wonder how long it'll be before someone releases a decal sheet for the splinter camo. Should be pretty doable - it's certainly no harder than the myriad carbon fiber template sheets on the market for various car kits.

[Paolo Maglio]

The kit is out and available for sale in Sweden (at least, maybe elsewhere in Europe).

I wonder how long it'll be before someone releases a decal sheet for the splinter camo. Should be pretty doable - it's certainly no harder than the myriad carbon fiber template sheets on the market for various car kits.

There is already one masks set by Gator's, even if I have been told it is not 100% correct.

Thank you for this excellent and very honest review Juan, it is very usefull for us.

[phantomdriver]

Is the kit even available? This was a test shot, right? No decals, no instructions, no box...

Tarangus will be at Telford tomorrow and Sunday....

[Paolo Maglio]

there are 4 decals option in the kit:

1 splinter scheme 4-38

2 two tone gray 16-49 with red tail number

3 two tone gray 16-49 with black tail number

4 a natural metal one with red 39 on tail.

All these 4 are JA37 fighters, but as we have seen all the parts to do an AJ (bomber) or SH or AJS, are already in the box.

[F4DPhantomII]

Looks on par with a Kitty Hawk kit, a little work needed here and there.I'll get one when available and hope for a resin cockpit.

Edited November 7, 2014 by F4DPhantomII

[mingwin]

The kit is out and available for sale in Sweden (at least, maybe elsewhere in Europe).

I wonder how long it'll be before someone releases a decal sheet for the splinter camo. Should be pretty doable - it's certainly no harder than the myriad carbon fiber template sheets on the market for various car kits.

indeed! that would certainly be helpful... at least for some modelers... and, as Syhart decals have already done something like the "full digital super-hornet..." maybe he might be tempted for that one too... (but this come with a high price tag...)

Edited November 7, 2014 by mingwin