It took a while, but here's the WiP part of the build with pictures:
The kit and its assembly:Sweden is a prolific whiffing territory, and the Saab 29 offers some interesting options. I actually had the idea of a two-engine J29 in the back of my mind for a long time, spawned by a resin conversion set for the Hasegawa B-47 Stratojet kit that came with new intakes and exhaust sections for the four engine pods. The single engine pod parts had been spent a long time ago, but the twin engine parts were still waiting for a good use. Could the exhaust fit under/into a Tunnan…?
I even had a Matchbox J29 stashed away for this experiment long ago, as well as some donor parts like the wings, and the GB eventually offered the right motivation to put those things together that no one would expect to work.
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
So I pulled out all the stuff and started – a rather straightforward affair. Work started with the fuselage, which was, together with the (very nice) cockpit assembled OOB at first, the nose filled with as much lead as possible and with the lower rear section cut away, so the B-47 resin jet nozzles would end up at the same position as the original RM2B exhaust. Due to the pen nib fairing between them, though, the profile of the modified tail became (visually) more massive, and I had to fill some gaps under the tail boom (with styrene sheet and putty). The twin engines also turned out to be wider than expected – I had hoped for straight flanks, but the fuselage shape ended up with considerable bulges behind the landing gear wells. These were created with parts from drop tank halves and blended into the rest of the lower hill with PSR work. In the same wake the area under the fin was sculpted and re-created, too.
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
At that point it became clear that I had to do more on the fuselage, esp. the front end, in order to keep the aircraft visually balance. A convenient solution became an F-100 air intake, which I grafted onto the nose instead of the original circular and round-lipped orifice – with its sharp lip the Super Sabre piece was even a plausible change! The fuselage shapes and diameters differed considerably, though, more PSR became necessary.
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
Next came the wings: I had already set apart a pair of trapezoid wings with a 45° sweep angle – these were left over from a PM Model Ta 183 conversion some time ago. With their odd shape and size they were a perfect match for my project, even more so due to the fact that I could keep the original J29 wing attachment points, I just had to shorten and modify the trailing edge area on the fuselage. The result was very conclusive.
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
With the new nose and the wings in place, the overall proportions became clearer: still tail-heavy, but not unpleasant. At this time I was also certain that I had to modify the tail surfaces. The fin was too small and did not have enough sweep for the overall look, and the stabilizer, with its thick profile, rounded edges and the single, continuous rudder did not look supersonic at all. What followed was a long search in the donor banks for suitable replacements, and I eventually came up with a MiG-15 fin (Hobby Boss) which was later clipped at the top for a less recognizable profile. The stabilizers were more challenging, though. My solution eventually became a pair of modified stabilizers from a Matchbox Buccaneer(!), attached to the MiG-15 fin.
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
The design problems did not stop here, though: the landing gear caused some more headaches. I wanted to keep the OOB parts, but especially the main legs would leave the aircraft with a very goofy look through a short wheelbase and a rear axis position too much forward. In an attempt to save the situation I attached swing arms to the OOB struts, moving the axis maybe 5mm backwards and widening the track by 2mm at the same time. Not much in total, but it helped (a little, even though the aircraft is still very tail-heavy)
As a final addition – since the original, wing-mounted pitots of the J29 were gone now and would not go well with the wing-switching idea – I gave the P29G a large, nose-mounted pitot and sensor boom, placed on top of the nose. This part come, like the air intake, from an F-100.
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
Painting and markings:I tend to be conservative when it comes to liveries for what-if models, and the P29G is no exception. At first, I thought that this build could become an operational supersonic daylight interceptor (the J29G), so that I could give the model full military markings and maybe a camouflage paint scheme. However, this idea would not work: the potential real life window for such an aircraft, based on the Saab 29, would be very narrow. And aircraft development in the late Fifties made quantum leaps within a very short period of time: While the J29A entered service, work on the Mach 2 Saab 35 was already underway – nobody would have accepted (or needed) a Mach 1 fighter, based on late Forties technology, at that time anymore, and there was the all-weather Saab J32B around, too. The update program with new wings and a more powerful afterburner engine was all that could be done to exploit the Tunnan’s potential, resulting in the (real world’s) J29E and F variants.
I eventually decided that the J29G would only be a prototype/research aircraft, consequently called P29G, and through this decision I became more or less settled upon a NMF finish with some colorful markings. Consequently, the model was painted with various shades of metal colors, primarily Polished Aluminum Metallizer from Humbrol, but also with Humbrol 191 and Matt Aluminum Metallizer as well as ModelMaster Steel Metallizer. Around the exhaust section, I also used Revell 91 (Iron) and ModelMaster Exhaust Metallizer. Some single panels and details were painted with Revell 99 (Aluminum), and I also used generic decal material in silver to simulate some smaller access panels. Grey decal sheet was used to simulate covers for the cannon nozzles.
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
The cockpit interior was painted, according to Saab 29 standard, in a dark greenish-grey (Revell 67), and bluish grey was used inside of the landing gear wells (Revell 57). The pitot boom received black and white stripes.
For markings I let myself get inspired from the real world Saab 29 and 32 prototypes, which were all marked with a colored “U” tactical code on the fin and also on the front fuselage, simply meaning “Utverding” (= “Test”). I found four red decals, and I also gave the aircraft a yellow cheatline, lent from an Airfix F-86D decal sheet. The Swedish roundels come from a generic aftermarket sheet, most stencils were taken from the Revell OOB sheet and a Printscale J29 sheet.
Before the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic varnish from Italeri, some grinded graphite was rubbed onto the rear fuselage, adding a metallic shine and simulating exhaust stains. Looks very down-to-earth, but overall more plausible than expected.
1:72 Saab P29G “Kurviga Tunnan” a.k.a. “Karpen“; 2nd prototype “Röd Urban” (s/n 29488), fitted with experimental 45° wings, Swedish Air Force during high speed trials; Malmslätt, Sweden, summer 1959 (Whif/Matchbox kit conversion) - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
In the meantime this build has been finished, beauty shots have been made but need editing - will be posted together with the aircraft's backgorund in a couple of days.
