Tarangus 1/48 SAAB Lansen A by Roland Sachsenhofer

Tarangus 1/48 scale
SAAB Lansen A

by Roland Sachsenhofer

SAAB Lansen A

Hobby Boss' 1/32 Spitfire Mk.Vb Trop is available online from Squadron

Description

With the Saab Lansen, flown for the first time in 1952, Sweden further extended its rank as a first-rate aviation nation. As an attack and fighter aircraft, the Lansen was able to keep up respectably with contemporary models. In a long and - God's thanks - rather unspectacular service time, the Lansen secured its reputation as a reliable and comfortable aircraft that could credibly protect Sweden's neutrality in the early years of the Cold War.

The long service life of the Lansen in the Swedish Air Force did not end until the early 1990s. From the beginning of the 1970s, however, it was replaced by the Saab Viggen in its role as a ground attack aircraft. As conventional as the Lansen's design may seem, with its surfaces swept to 39 degrees and the standard installation of an on-board radar called PS-431/A, which turned the Lansen into an all-weather combat plane, it can be regarded as a top product of contemporary air armament.

The A version was designed as an attack aircraft for the fight against ground and sea targets. In addition to their armament with four fixed 20 mm Bofors m/49 cannons and an appropriate equipment with rocket and dropping weapons, a specially designed naval missiles with the designation Saab Rb 04 could be deployed by the Lansen. My model shows a Lansen A of the F17 squadron stationed in Kallinge in southern Sweden. The Tarangus kit offers in rather massive dimensioned parts a good basis for the construction of an early "Attack" Lansen. The fitting accuracy of the parts is quite respectable, more annoying are the thick sprue pins, which make the separation of the parts to real work.

The cockpit shows few details, as well as the landing gear shafts. Both areas should be equipped with some detailing workings by the ambitious modeler. I helped myself here with a suitable etching part set from Maestro-Model; by the way, the entry ladders as well as the two FODs, which can be seen on some pictures, also come from the same manufacturer.

Some components - like the chassis legs or the belly mounted fairing of the on-board radar - are so coarse that they already scratch along the border of the usable. With the first one I tried to get a usable shape with detail forms from wire and a few etched parts, with the second one the component was exchanged against its counterpart from the Lansen kit of Hobby Boss.

The two resin ejection seats are quite good, but the installation of a more detailed harness is recommended. For the glass "ears" mounted on the head part of the ejection seats, the transparent kit parts that seemed to be too thick were not used. Instead those made of self-cut transparent film were installed. To equip the open canopy I used etched parts from the spare box.

The construction itself went without major difficulties, here the kit can score with accuracy of fit and a relatively simple parts construction, which allows rapid progress. The construction manual encourages with its sometimes too simplistic way of representation too much own research, this concerns also the marking versions. Here it is not bad to inform oneself about the current appearance of this attractive airplane and the traces of pollution and weathering, which are especially noticeable on elderly Lansen, in the fortunately abundant pictorial material about the Lansen.

Despite or maybe even because of the necessary additional effort regarding research, improvisation and detailing, this construction experience remains in my memory as pleasant and rewarding!

Thumbnail panels:

If you are interested in the building process, please have a look here on Scalemates:

https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=10148&p=albums&album=45336

As ever, remarks will be appreciated: ro.sachsenhofer@gmx.at

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