Sweden has always been fiercely independent and over the last century, has made a major effort to stay neutral in the various conflicts that have plagued the world. One of the problems that can come from the need to keep out of things, is that they need to be self sufficient when it comes to providing for the national defense. This frequently means more expensive weapons systems, but such is the price that the citizens of the country are willing to pay in the form of high rates of taxation to keep a viable military.

During WWII, though the Swedes did buy outside designed aircraft, it was pretty obvious that they needed to do more on their own. In 1941 it was pretty obvious that they weren't going to get a ton of help from the warring powers in aircraft so Swedish Aircraft Ltd (SAAB), was tasked with developing a fighter. It had to be able to reach enemy planes quickly and have the firepower to be effective.

The result was the first of many somewhat unorthodox designs to come from SAAB when it comes to fighter development. The twin boom  layout proved to offer straight-forward gun placement in the nose and leading edge of the booms. The pusher design also provided an aircraft that was very easy to land and one that got into the air quickly. It did provide some design problems in terms of cooling the DB 605B engine and getting pilots used to the nose gear layout, but overall, when it entered unit service in mid 1945, it was quite an effective aircraft....at low altitude. You see, the lack of supercharging meant that as the altitude went much over 10 or 15,000 feet, engine performance fell off.

As such, when other aircraft became available as fighters (like the P-51 Mustang), the J-21 was turned into a ground attack aircraft, one where it was quite successful. Thanks to the pusher propeller, standard bail out wasn't an option, so an effective ejection seat was developed which was used with success on every occasion it was needed.

When the jet age came into being it was decided to convert the J21 to turbojet power. The initially simple seeming project ended up with an almost completely new airframe. Again, it was relatively successful but as a fighter, it was inferior to the Vampires that were coming into use by the Swedish Air Force, so turned over to ground attack duties where it was, again, successful for the remainder of its relatively short career.

This new book in  MMP's Yellow series takes a look at the design and development of the J-21 and J-21R. Within its 144 pages is a complete rundown on the aircraft and its different variants. The history section covers the use of the aircraft within each of the fighter wings that flew the plane. Thanks to three extant airframes in Swedish museums, there is a full and complete walk around with most of the images in this section in full color. This also includes period images and pages from the maintenance manuals to give even greater insight into this fighter. There are also a goodly number of the color profiles we have all come to expect from MMP books.  As an added bonus, there are scale plans included in 1/72 and  1/48 scale, the latter provided as a huge fold out that provided additional detail drawings. 

Overall, it is a most complete look at one of the world's more interesting fighters. A book that continues the excellent of MMP products and one that I can highly recommend to you.

November 2010

Review book courtesy of Mushroom Models Publications where you can order your copy. Australian readers can get theirs from Platypus Publications, and US readers from Casemate Publishing.

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