SAAB 210-1 Lilldraken

Kit:	Planet Models (resin), 1/72nd; bought on eBay in 2021 for about $25.
Aircraft:	(no tail number), SAAB factory, Linköping, Sweden, 1952.

The Lilldraken ("Little Kite") was an experimental prototype built by SAAB (Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, roughly "The Swedish Aircraft Corporation") to test the - at the time - revolutionary tail-less double delta wing design. The SAAB 210 was the world's first full-size aircraft with the double delta design to fly, and proved to be an invaluable research vehicle at the time when computers and simulations were not available for designers as much as they are today. The aircraft flew over 1,000 times [5]. Model 210-1 was the original configuration of the prototype, it was later modified and designated 210-2. Some of the modifications had to do with corrected jet engine intakes, and resulted in the form later realized in the SAAB 35 Draken. The original intake design caused vortices at high angles of attack and negatively affected longitudinal stability.

The letter "U" in the tail is not an individual aircraft identification, I have seen it on many Swedish prototype and test aircraft; I am not sure what it stands for (maybe "utväckling", development).

About the name "Draken"

The Swedish word "drake" (pronounced /ˈdrɑːˌkɛ/) has two distinct meanings: a kite or a dragon. Initially the SAAB 210 got to be called "Draken" because from above it looked like a paper kite ("den såg ut som en pappersdrake ovanifrån" says the Swedish defense department's site about the history of SAAB aircraft in Swedish military service). And it is "draken" rather than "drake" because the former is the definitive form of the noun (as in "the kite"). Later, the name was transferred to the full-size fighter aircraft under development, and the 210 got the rather obvious nickname "Lilldraken".

Construction Notes

The Planet Models' resin kit is simple but the material is very nicely cast and has fine details. The kit comes with a thin vacuform canopy, and is mostly accurate as far as shapes and dimensions go. That is sort of where the "nice" ends: The fit of the parts is not quite perfect so various forms of putty was needed. The wing and the whole rear fuselage was cast as a single part, with the nose (including cockpit) to be slipped in. The vertical tail was a separate part. And even though this is a kit of the earlier version of the aircraft, if comes with the later version's vertical tail.

The kit instruction sheet is rather poor and some parts are mis-numbered. There are also parts that are not mentioned at all on the sheet.

These are the main modifications and corrections:

The two halves of the cockpit did not fit together particularly well. I needed to glue a small plastic tab on the inside to ensure proper alignment. I also placed a horizontal support between the halves to keep the sides of the cockpit straight (see the picture below). I added a new cockpit floor from 10 thou styrene strip, and photo-etch seatbelts to the otherwise very decent ejection seat.
The engine intakes were solid pieces of resin with the "ducts" only extending about 2 mm in from the intake lip. I drilled a 3 mm hole, then carved out and sanded the insides of the parts to have proper ducts. Luckily the resin wasn't particularly brittle so this was an easy task.
The vertical tail had a poor fit and needed some putty to properly join it with the fuselage. Also, the part that came with the kit represents a later configuration, and had to be extended. I did this by gluing a piece of styrene sheet at the top and sanding it to shape. I also re-scribed the part to reflect the correct shape of the rudder.
There were some problems with the resin casting: The left (outer) wing was "drooping" a bit; I fixed that by dipping it into near-boiling water and gently pushing the wingtip up a bit, then rinsed with cold water. There were also some minor cracks in the leading edges (the thick, inner wing); I filled and sanded those.

The kit is made of well-cast resin, but thin parts like wingtips break easily. I managed to break off the corner of one wingtip when I dropped the model on the floor. I used a neat technique with superglue (described in this blog post) to repair it.

The kit comes with white metal landing gear parts and a vacuform canopy. They graciously they give you two canopies, because you are going to mess up one cutting it out anyway. I dipped the canopy in Future floor wax, and then (after a couple of hours when I was convinced it was completely dry) I glued it on with CA glue by dipping a small applicator brush in the glue and running it along the edge of the canopy. The canopy is supposed to have a frame, so that worked out fine. Attaching vacuform canopies comes with some hassle and one has to be careful, but there is something to be said about how really thin, Future treated transparent parts look so realistic.

Basic components. Note the extended vertical tail.

The basic airframe almost complete.

Vacform canopy attached. Light coat of Mr. White Surfacer 1000 to reveal where sanding was needed.

Sanding done, but the seam of the vertical tail needed more putty. Note: If you are slapping putty on your model without masking, you are doing it wrong.

Painting

The original aircraft only had paint on the nose and on the wing leading edges, otherwise it was just unpainted aluminum. Different panels are slightly different in color (see the photo of the real aircraft below). I used several Alclad II paints for this, mostly ALC 106 White Aluminum and ALC 103 Dark Aluminum, but also ALC 102 Duraluminum and ALC 112 Steel for some smaller details; the black nose was sprayed using Mr. Color semi-gloss black. The entire model was finished with Alclad's ALC 312 Klear Kote Semi Matte (which is fantastic, by the way).

References Used

One tends to find reference material about the Lilldraken wherever the "real" Draken is documented. These are the sources I used during this project, [5, 6] being the most useful:

Aeroplane Monthly August 1998
Aeroplane Monthly May 2010
SAAB Aircraft since 1937 (Andersson); Putnam 1997
SAAB Aircraft (James); Archive Photographs Series; Chalford Publishing 1997
Saab J35 Draken (Dorr et al); Aerofax Minigraph 12; Aerofax, Inc. 1987
Svenska militära helikoptrar, prov- och segelflygplan 1926-1991 (Karlström); Flygplansritningar 6; Allt om Hobby 1991
World Air Power Journal Summer 1994
X-Planes and Prototypes (Winchester); Barnes & Noble Books 2005
X-Planes of Europe - Secret Research Aircraft from the Golden Age 1946-1974 (Buttler & Delezenne); Hikoki Publications 2012

Lilldraken photographed in 1952 (photo: Flygvapenmuseum, public domain)