This is a brass replacement for the nose pitot on the 1/144 J35 Draken. But wait, there’s more… It’s also an add-on for a tail pitot. But you have to check. Some Drakens have the tail pitot, many don’t, so check a photo before adding the tail pitot.

The brass parts are always a welcome replacement for the plastic parts. All too often the plastic pitots prove to be fragile, and they break or bend. The Master pitots are fine turned brass, and they stand up to age and handling far better than the styrene kit parts.

In this case I had a Pit Road Draken I built last year. I replaced the nose pitot, and upgraded the tail with the new pitot there.

Installation

In 1/144 scale, the removal of the kit part and the installation of the brass part have different levels of difficulty. The removal of the nose pitot took about 15 seconds. Just cut it off. The installation took about 10 minutes, most of which was trying to keep the hole in at the tip of the nose from wandering off. I find that squaring off the cut off area with a sanding stick helps give the drill a spot to start from. Once the hole is deep enough, the brass part has CA glue applied, and it fits right in there.

The tail pitot was somewhat easier, in that there’s no part to remove. Just square off the end of the top of the tail and drill the hole. Then put the part in.

That was the good and easy part of the build. But I did have a devil of a time getting the parts out of the plastic bag they came in. The top of the bag folds over and has adhesive holding it closed. But about half way down the bag is a place where it’s been sealed, and ¾ of the way, sealed again. This keeps the pitots safely in the bag no matter what, but I had to cut the bag at the bottom to get the nose pitot out, and then cut the bag 3 times to get that tiny tail pitot out. Yes, they kept the parts in there. So firmly in there that I had a lot of trouble getting the parts out.

Overall Evaluation

Recommended. These Master pitots are finely done turned brass, and they stand up to handling so much better than plastic parts. And in case there’s no pitot on the model, the Master Model parts are far better than anything I could manufacture. They’re very good, even if they’re difficult to get out of the package.

Thanks to Master Model for the review item, and IPMS USA for allowing me to upgrade my Draken.