The Little World

I’m feeling sentimental…

You cannot laugh at the Finnish Air Force. If you do they swoop down on you and open up with cannons and rockets. The Finns have very little sense of humour.

This is not surprising. They live in between two heavily-armed neighbours – the Swedes and the Russians – and in their turn neither of these nations is known as a barrel of laughs. The closest thing that the Finns can come to a good time is to listen to the sounds of Denmark partying as the music drifts in over the Baltic. It makes them very sad and they drink…

But they got some good shit in the Finnish Air Force. It’s mostly US goods now but in the 1980’s they had a deal with Sweden to fly the Saab Drakken J35 fighters if the Soviets started attacking. This their pilots got trained and the Swedes stockpiled the fighters for them.

That’s the Wikipedia story that underlines this Hasegawa model of a J35S – it is painted in the colours of the last flight undertaken. I was a little afraid that they had sold out to the Red Bull soft drink company, but not so – it’s a legit scheme. At least you could see it easily. Makes rather a mockery of the tiny little air-superiority low-vis roundels, though…

I am generally not in favour of giving the paint shop a jug of red cordial and a full paint gun, for fear of what they may do…but in this case I rather like it. Its appearance on the exhibition stand reinforces the dictum that when you see something on the shelves of the hobby shop, buy it rather than wait a while – it may never return.

PS: There is one of these on the shelves of Ace Models in Midland right now, for Perth modellers…