Introduction
I know this aircraft since my earliest days as aviation enthusiast in the shape of a SIKU solid plastic model in 1:250 scale which I owned at about the age of eleven. See pictures of a copy which I aquired about 2 years ago for my SIKU collection.
I had not paid special attention to this plane since then, though certainly it came under my personal category mysterious shape.
Having browsed Bill Gunstons Book Fighters of the Fifties [1] these days I read his following comments about the Draken:
" Even with the maturity of hindsight, it remains exceptional in the way it combined bold design with total success. One wonders why this so-called 'double delta' was the only aircraft to have such a layout. Even more one wonders why this amazingly cost/effective family should hardly have been consiered by the flood of air forces that instead bought F-104, F-5 or Mirage. Even today [1981] the ability to make automatic all-weather interceptions at Mach 2, drop 9,000 lb of bombs, or fly any kind of electronic-warfare or recon mission, and then vanish into the obscurity of farmland where there is no evident airfield is not exactly common." p 206
Inspired additionally by stunning photographs I found in the internet at about the same time I decided it is worth to make an entry for the Draken in this website.
History
"The first prototype flew for the first time on 25 October 1955. Production deliveries started late in 1959 and until 1962 a series of ninety J35 A was completed including prototypes" [2] Engine: Rolls-Royce Avon series 100 (RM5 A).
Pictures
References
|
