Wild Weasel Gripen

[SebastianP]

Money came early this month - YAY! So I went ahead and bought a twin-seater Gripen, to go with my spare ALARM missiles (courtesy of my Tornado GR.1 which I finally picked up the last two tins of paint for...)

Now, I just have to figure out what paint scheme to use on this thing, since the Swedish one is nearly impossible for me to get right... (it always turns out too dark, or too light, or too blue, or too...whatever.)

I don't own an airbrush, so keep the ideas simple, please? No splinter schemes!

SP

[Bryan H.]

Thinking out-loud mode...

Since she'll often be working at low-level, I'd suggest something using the same colors (greens, black & tan) as the Swedes used on their AJ37's.  Just don't do the splinter scheme.  I'd go with dark olive green, field green, black and dark tan with middle grey undersides.  Perhaps, you could do these colors but put the grey up the sides of the fuselage and on the tail; like the last scheme on SAAF Mirage F.1AZ's.

Or you could do something really different like some sort of Swedish version of the Egyptian "Nile" camo scheme.  Substitute, black or middle green for the desert tan.  Presumably, the Swedish Wild Weasel squadron would be considered an "elite" unit, so a unique camo scheme might be good for morale.

I don't own an airbrush, so keep the ideas simple, please? No splinter schemes!

With careful masking spray cans can make good, convincing soft or hard edged camouflage.

Bryan

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Or something even simpler like the two color camouflage of the earlier J35 Drakens which looked good in that dark blue/green pattern and skip the light undersides and make it a wrap around scheme.  

[AeroplaneDriver]

Sounds likea great project!

How about an allover green or grey with a mottle camo in a differet shade of green or grey, done by cutting smal(1/4-1/2 inch), random holes in a piece of cardstock and spraying the model while holding the card an inch or so above the model.

[Eddie M.]

This is a paint scheme I did with a roll of masking tape and 3 cans of spray paint. It took a few days drying time, but you can do just about anything with old rattle cans.
   Eddie

[SebastianP]

As it stands, the choice is right now between the original "boring gray" scheme, or RAF gray/green wraparound - with decals sourced from the Revell Tornado GR.1.

The RAF option actually makes a lot of sense, thinking about the stake the Brits already have in the Gripen...

SP

[AeroplaneDriver]

How about an RN Sea Gripen.  The backstory on my Firestorm FG.1 from last week had the RN complementing the Firestorm with Sea Gripens.  If the UK pulls out of the F-35 it may actually come to pass, since the Saab test pilots have already conducted carrier landings in Gripen sims.  Lots of development to do, but the Super Gripen on the drawing board could probably be made carrier-capable cheaper thatn the Typhoon.

However you do it, I cant wait to see it, I love Gripens!

[Captain Canada]

WW Gripen sounds awful tasty.......any colour scheme, just do it ! I like the idea of dark greens and greys or browns w/ black.

Cheers !

[K5054NZ]

Wild Weasel anything is tasty! Dammit, when I get my two seat Typhoon eventually, i'm gonna WW it!    

[Damian2]

I agree any scheme will be fine on a Gripen WW    

[lancer]

I have plane to build both naval and WW versions of the Gripen just working out the cammo schemes for them. Oh yeah, I gotta get some more kits as well.  

[SebastianP]

Apropos Gripens in general,  I was showing the kit to my mom yesterday and commented on it being a family model - and she asked me "does it seat four, then?"  

First reaction was a vision of a Gripen with a widened and stretched fuselage, with a su-34 style nose, two engines, and a Prowler-style canopy arrangement. Second reaction, after taking a good long think about it, is that I've finally come up with a use for the *abysmal* 1/32 Gripen kit - stick a 1/72 Prowler pit in it, all under one canopy, and suddenly, it's become a penetration bomber!

Not that I'll ever waste money on another of those kits ever again, though...

SP

[SebastianP]

I went with the Swedish version after all, since I finally found a color match for the top camo (Humbrol 145 - it turns out that I'd been trying Humbrol *144* previously, which pretty much explains my troubles...)

Be advised - the instruction sheet has the inboard/outboard pylons reversed - or rather, it's easier to get the pylons to fit in the opposite arrangement than described in the instructions. I still ended up using a bunch of gap-filling CA, and it doesn't look quite the way I want it anyway, but it's better than my last three tries.

I've also added BOL dispensers - I used the pair of missile launch rails marked "not for use", which as it turns out have the same side profile as the Hasegawa F-16 rails, but are twice as thick. Which is exactly what is needed in order to mate squarely with the cut off rear ends of the Hasegawa Tomcat BOL rails... I cut the BOL pods off flush with the forward edge of the fairing, and trimmed off 1.5 mm at the rear ends of the rails, and glued them onto the outboard pylons. Piece of cake! I may end up tossing *another* pair of stolen Revell missiles here - this time a pair of Meteors from my newly bought Typhoon..

Getting the ALARMs on will be another story entirely - using the Tornado kit rails in their entirety looks very weird, but the rail itself is much too thin to look good if I trim it down, especially if compared to the rather deep AMRAAM rails on the outboard stations. I suppose I could use HARM rails, since I've got some of those left over - does anyone think that'd work?

Sorry about the lack of pics - camera is still misbehaving...

SP