For many years Saab advertised their cars as being built by the only company which also built aeroplanes. Both the cars and ‘planes were esoteric products with cult followings. Be it the sci-fi styled Drakken, the tank-like 900 or the canard-delta Viggen, the designs were certainly individual. The Viggen (Thunderbolt) was designed with some very specific requirements of the Swedish Airforce in mind. It had to be capable of operating from short, rough airstrips but also capable of Mach 2 performance. This led to an unusual wing layout for short take offs, coupled with automatic thrust-reversers for short landing, which enabled the aircraft to almost handbrake turn, as shown in this video.

Sweden’s Stefan Johansson has posted this very nice model of the original AJ-37 version of the Viggen on Flickr. Its grey/natural metal finish is very similar to the last flying example, operated by the Swedish Airforce Historic Flight. Stefan has done a great job of capturing the Viggen’s compound delta wing and area-ruled fuselage in bricks. The model also includes working landing gear. To see more photos of this and Stefan’s other models of Saab fighter jets, you can visit his Photostream at this link.