A little while back, I previewed the Italeri JAS-39 Gripen kit. Since this kit was produced, several nations have purchased this aircraft. Not because it was the least expensive, but because it did not come with any political strings attached, something that often happens when buying military equipment from the US, UK or Russia. Sweden will pretty much sell to anyone and will provide parts and service regardless of the world situation.

Looking through the 'net I did not find a lot of options, but one that popped up was HAD Models. This particular sheet offers markings for three different air forces. There is a single Swedish JAS-39C, a single Czech JAS-39C and markings for JAS-39C and JAS-39Ds from the Hungarian Air Force. This latter isnot surprising as the sheet is developed and printed in Hungary.

he full color instructions provide both photographs and drawings for the placement of decals and stencils. Note that HAD made a mistake on the wing roundels for the Czech option. Czech roundels are always blue forward and white out or up, not the way shown in the instructions. The instructions show the differences in some of the stencils between the single and two seat Hungarian plane as well as some that are unique to the Swedish or Czech plane. It would have been nice to have had more serial options for the non-Hungarian planes.

The decals themselves are not really that well printed for something developed in the 21st Century. The lack of crispness reminds me of some ALPS printed decals or the Microscale sheets I bought in the early 1970s. This means that many of the markings are rather fuzzy making the small stencils rather illegible. There was also a bit of a stray paint marking on one of the Swedish roundels.