Icelandic Air Corps Gripen

[david sMiGielski]

Although Iceland is a NATO member, by late 2010 the government in Reykjavik was becoming increasingly concerned about the country's perceived vulnerability, especially as relations between Russia and the West broke down. The repeated violations of Icelandic airspace by Russian Blackjack bombers in September and October 2010 convinced Icelandic defense officials that their country needed some sort of air defense capability.



In January 2011, Icelandic officials secretly approached the Swedish Government about leasing a handful of JAS-39s, but were rebuffed by Stockholm's socialist government, who feared the passage of fighter aircraft to a NATO member would compromise Sweden's neutrality.



Not long after returning from Stockholm, Icelandic officials were approached by Czech MoD officials, who offered to sell 24 of their JAS-39s to Iceland at a significantly reduced cost [press reports later suggested that the US played a major role in pushing Prague forward on the sale. Although this was never confirmed, shortly before the first Gripen arrived at Keflavik, the Czech Republic purchased several squadrons of F-35 Lightning II's from the US at a steep discount. The discount was so significant that it led to Denmark pulling out of the F-35 program out of protest that they hadn't received a similar deal.]



The first Icelandic Gripen arrived at Keflavik on July 14, 2012. By mid-2013, the Icelandic Air Corps possessed 24 Gripens, all serving in the maritime/air defense role.

[GTX]

Nice!

Regards,

Greg

[Rafael]

Beautiful Build, David!!!
And a good Backstory to match!!!

I like the loadout and the color scheme is eye-catching.

Rafa

[Bryan H.]

Verry nice!

Bryan  

[John Howling Mouse]

mmm, mmm, mmm!!!!   it!

[anthonyp]

Oh, now this is very nice!  Now, I want, nay, NEED some 1/72 IRIS-T's!!!

   

[Captain Canada]

Nice work !

Great story...I didn't want it to end ! I love the idea of hostilities in the Arctic regions, just so compelling.

Awesome paint scheme...but you gotta fill us in on the colours !

I also noticed ( at least it looks like ) the pilot is wearing a survival suit....nice touch !

 

[Mike Wren]

great model, love the colour scheme    

[Hobbes]

I like it; the colour scheme is nicely unusual. Did you make the decals yourself?  

[Damian2]

Yet another stunner David!!  

Great loadout to!!

[ysi_maniac]

This is a wonderful Model and plausible/funny backhistory.
Really five stars
       

Questions:
Decals?
can we have more light in pics?
Pilot? Hasegawa?

[Ian the Kiwi Herder]

Ohhhh yes !

Betcha happy with the way this one turned-out, David..... I would be !. Excellent work, my friend, jus excellent !

Ian

[gunfighter]

Very nice  B) . I wonder why nobody uses ASRAAMs for the models. I thougt it can be loaded into a triple rail, I read it somewhere. Is that a viable option?.  

[david sMiGielski]

Thanks everyone.

The pilot was originally going to be used in a Norwegian F-16A but I decided to build that kit in Jordanian markings instead. I'm a huge fan of the orange jumpsuit. I used Eduard's Zoom set in the cockpit but none of it is visible. That's $8 I'll never see again.

The paint scheme was kind of thrown together using various Gunze paints. I think at least one of the upper colors is light ghost gray. I just went with what looked right.

The markings (save for the numbers) were printed on an inkjet. They are far from perfect. I had a lot of missing color, almost as if it was printing every other pixel. Once it was weathered and clearcoated, it looked fine.

The Gripen is armed with AMRAAMs from the spares box (Hasegawa's, I think), IRIS-Ts (which are just too cool not to use) from RoG's new EF-2000 kit, and Shull24's resin Penguins (also too cool not to use and also intended for use on the Norwegian F-16).  

All in all, a fun build.  

[DropBear]

Nice job!

Like the paint scheme and use of Penguins.