Saab J-35 Draken details Pt. V.

Here are some additional details of the same Austrian Saab J-35 as in my previous Draken walkaround posts (Part I. to IV.). You will find mainly its underside and many fuselage details here – for instance the lower tail section with airbrakes and a tail pipe, the air intake details or cockpit insight.

1. Fore fuselage details, air intake and cockpit.

This picture depicts the lower section of the fuselage just behind the front undercarriage and the RAT (Ram Air Turbine). The camera is looking toward the nose of the airplane:

The front undercarriage is completely documented in this article. The RAT with its well is a place of quite high complexity, so I decided to give it a separate article. Just behind the front undercarriage well can be found this oblong cover – probably an aerial (upper and lower pictures).

This is the aerial how it can be seen when you stand near the front undercarriage on the port side of the airplane. When you crawl to the opposite side of the plane and one small step behind the RAT, you can find this “tube”:

Frankly I do not know what it could be, but as a modeller you can not afford to miss it. Let us look at pictures below to better see where it is:

You can see it inside the lightened circle (in the upper picture) and in the lower left corner of the picture below. You can see into the RAT well here too -the nose of the airplane is toward the top (picture below):

When you stand under the fore fuselage area under the nose undercarriage well the air intakes are visible on both fuselage sides. Let us look here now.

This is the left-hand (port side) air intake duct:

Looking deep enough inside you will see the engine compressor there:

The air intake is depicted in nice detail thanks to my friend Juraj Bojkovsky and his photographing skills. As you can see (on the lower picture) the air intake edges are made of semitransparent (maybe fibre-glass ) material:

Now we are close to the cockpit. It was accessible via the ladder during the doors open day visit – but unfortunately with canopy closed. Juraj tried several shots into the cockpit despite the wrong lighting conditions – at least to get a notion of how it looks like.

Mainly the interior colours could be valuable for modellers building this type.

Saab J-35 Draken, Cockpit, Right hand wall

Right-hand console, the pilots’ seat and harness view:

These two shots depict the harness belts portion close to the pilot’s headrest base.

2. Underside fuselage details /central & tail section.

In the central section of the Draken underside you can find these air outlets positioned on the fuselage in front of the main undercarriage wells:

The same area close-up:

Following shots depict the central section of the airplane from underneath, while looking toward the tail. You can see many vents here, blade antenna, fuselage-wing connnection and auxiliary tail undercarriage covered in my previous article. The camera is moving step by step toward the tail:

Two vertical stepped screws hold the whole Draken high up – as this plane serves as a teaching aid. Unfortunately it was not possible to climb somewhere above the airplane and to make some photographs from above …

So we are still under the fuselage tail section here, but now looking toward the nose – to see all those details also from this place:

Here you can see the fairing placed in front of the tail auxiliary undercarriage (and between the lower airbrakes) in closer look:

The tail gear is behind the rectangular lowered door (picture above). Please also note the flap hinge and a flap side-rib structure detail.

The air vents in good detail – placed in front of the tail undercarriage fairing (fairing is near the right edge of the upper picture). The yellowish trace between the vents is greasy dirt “floating” backwards.

Here you can see the upper rear air brake close up (upper picture) and the lower rear air brake (lower picture). Both air brakes were were photographed on the same (left-hand) side.

Here is the close-up of the left (port side) wing root trailing edge. The wing root inner structure is well visible here. Please also note the upper rear air brake which is deployed (upper edge of the picture) while the lower rear air brake was retracted. The sticking out shape above the wing root is the air scoop (upper right corner):

Please note the blunt trailing edge of the wing root (upper picture) and flap too (lower picture).

This is the backmost portion of the fuselage just in front of the tail pipe (which is to the left). The anti-colision light mounted on the wing trailing edge is also visible (lower right section of the picture):

This is the same section, but the camera is looking almost directly toward the nose of the airplane:

The whole underside area between the tail undercarriage and the tail pipe is depicted here. Please note the wing details, structure of the lowered flaps and their blunt trailing edges. The dk. green structure mounted on both wing upper sides is probably holding the wing’s movable surfaces in desired position.