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Saab Safir trainer in 1/72 scale: building the Heller kit
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Another few Heller Safir 1/72 kits were made.
This kit will be made as per kit with Norwegian Air Force markings that are included as decals.
Made straight out of the box, do not forget to add nose weight. I retained the electrical equipment compartment next to the rear seat.
Note that sometimes a small fairing is seen, it is in the kit as part #21 as well as the propeller spinner part #20. But here not required.
Some filler / putty is needed with a bit of sanding. I tried to retain the fine raised panel lines.
There are no gear bay side walls, these enclosed with some card and white glue.
The overall Norwegean Safir was to airbrushed yellow.
Info suggests the yellow to be Fed.Std 33655, similar to "Blue Angels" yellow. Gunze Sangyo has a paint H329 but I did not have this.
This yellow is a bit "deeper" in hue, so it was decided to first apply a red base coat as seen here. A Revell Aqua red was used.
Than followed Gunze Sangyo yellow H4 acrylic with a drop of red H13.
After masking the orange high visiblilty bands in Gunze H14 acrylic were airbrushed.
The black anti glare panel was hand painted and for the wing walk ways black decals were used.
The model got the kit decals. To avoid "silvering", below each decal a gloss coat (with Johnson Future/ Pledge) was set first with a brush when setting it.
The interior was painted in a blue/light grey colour with green seat cushions. Some scrap details were added in the cabin like straps form tape. The equipment compartment is seen as well.
The large transparant hood is one piece with all doors and windows. It was set closed and needs careful painting of the frames. First paint a grey base coat at then the yellow. The hood is a bit too wide but I did not bother further.
The small landing gear was installed. The two small pitot tubes on the wing tips and anti colliiosn lights were painted. A few antennas were also set in place made from card and stretched sprue.
NORWAY
[ area: 385,200 km2 | capital: Oslo | population: 5,4 million | GDP 60,000 Euro per capita nominal ]
During the Cold War Norway became a NATO member and types operated were e.g Vampires, F-86 Sabres, F-84 Thunderjets and later Lockheed F-104 Starfighters and Northrop F-5. Training was done with some 20 Saab Safirs, flying from Trondheim Vaernes.
Later, the F-16 came. Look for more info about the Norwegean Air Force at the F-16 page here...
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Another Heller Safir kit was made representing an aircraft of the Ethiopean Air Force.
The model was made as described above for the Norwegean kit.
The overall colour is plain aluminium for which Revell Aqua acrylic 90 "silber" was airbrushed. The black anti glare panel was hand painted and for the wing walk ways black decals were used.
The Ethiopean markings had to be made at home with large "old style" roundels. On the wing these are in 1/72 scale 14 mm in diameter and on the fuselage 6 mm. These were home printed, look here how.... . The roundels were printed on white sheet with surrounding silver areas in colour. This makes cutting with scissors easier.
The model details were made as described earlier with cabin, landing gear and hood with frames. One cabin window was set open after being cut out with a TIGER razor saw. I had damaged the wing tip pitots, so new ones were made.
ETHIOPIA
[Ethiopia area: 1,100,000 sq.km excl. Eritrea | capital: Addis Abeba | population: 112 million | GDP US 1,000 per capita nominal ]
The Ethiopean air force flew around 1948 with the Saab B-17. They needed a aviation school and it was to be combined with a civil pilots school after the Second World War. Saab 91A Safirs were acquired flying from an old Italian airfield at Bishoftu, south of Addis Abeba. When the first Safirs were flown to Ethiopia, they were equipped with neither radio nor navigational equipment. However, the SK-50 had FR8 equipment. Some 48 Safirs were delivered to Ethiopia in various versions with the last one arriving mid 1966. They were used into the 1980s.
Look for more information about the Ethiopean Air Force at the MiG-23 page here...
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Created this page January 24, 2021