Aires

1/72 SAAB Jas-39 Gripen Exhaust Nozzles For the Italeri, Airfix, RoG

Stock Number: AHM7160 (J-39A/B Closed), AHM7165 (J-39C Closed)

Reviewed By  Mike Howard, IPMS# 30741

MSRP: $14.95 each The Jas-39 Gripen is the latest incarnation of the long line of indigenous Swedish aircraft built by SAAB. A very capable fighter/strike aircraft, its also been served fairly well in the 1/72nd scale modeling arena with kits from Italeri, Airfix and RoG. I've only seen the Italeri kit personally but can attest to the fact that there's room for additional detail on many of the kit parts, one of these definitely being the exhaust nozzle and afterburner can. Aires resin/photo etch to the rescue! These two aftermarket sets take care of all of the detailing that you need to make the back end of the engine look the part. The parts are nicely packaged in a clear, rigid plastic container with foam backing to minimize movement. Each set contains 4 resin pieces: afterburner petals, ring, can and rear engine compressor vane face and 1 photo etch part: flame holder. The detailing on each part is very fine and well done. Even the details inside the can are well represented.

The installation of these parts is very simple with just a few cuts, a little sanding and then a little glue (just like any kit, right?). The improvement over the kit parts is very apparent:

Please note that the Aires resin parts have been sprayed with metallizer and the visible scratches are not in the resin, but are in the paint (I got a little too aggressive with the buffing!!) For anyone wanting to add a 1/72nd Gripen to their collection, these great detail parts from Aires will make a nice kit look even better. Thanks very much to Aires and IPMS USA for the review samples (soon to be installed in my Italeri Gripen).

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