SAAB J21A Fighter

This 1/72 scale kit comes from a well-known Czech model company called Special Hobby. I’ve built some good kits from them for years and in that same time, not so good kits as well. The pros for this kit are as follows: You have four paint schemes to choose from and the one I did is on the cover of the box called SAAB J-21A, Bu no (Fv) 21102, the second prototype Red “A”. The other three versions included are SAAB J-21A-2, Yellow “C” F12 wing, Kalmar, 1947-1950.; SAAB J-21A, Bu no (Fv) 21120 Blue “F”, 2. division, F9 wing, Säve, 1947.; SAAB J-21A, Pyry, Red “P”, 1. division, F9 wing, Säve, 1947. All versions for the painting the outside and placing of the decals are in full color and in every view possible. The decals were quite easy to take off the paper and applied to the aircraft. For the most part, the components fit well with minimal sanding and spackle to fill in the gaps especially in the twin booms. The cons for this kit are as follows: The instructions for building the interior of the aircraft are quite difficult to make out. This is also true with the landing gear as I found out to be iffy at best. So I decided to have no landing gear thus shown as if it were flying. There is also a place in the front of the aircraft to put in eight grams of ballast for its one of those planes with tricycle landing gear. But I found that to be impractical and decided against it. The photo-etched pieces included for this kit for the most part are way too thin and way too small to work with especially with the tail surfaces and so I didn’t use them. The directions also didn’t explain what color the wheel hubs and tires are supposed to be. In conclusion, I give this kit a rating of three stars out of five. Special Hobby if you’re reading this, the kit as a whole is a very interesting subject to look at and build. But it has some severe issues that prevented me from giving it a higher rating. Its not the best aircraft I’ve built but its also not the worst. If you were to make the assembly of the landing gear better, I might give this one my seal of approval.