Björn Karlström was a well known artist who drew scale illustrations of aircraft for nearly 60 years - since the late thirties! His work was published in many parts of the world including magazines such as Air Trails, Model Ariplane News, Flying, Aviation Age, American Aircraft Modeler and RC-modeler. He was a consulant for many newspapers, for example the New York Herald Tribune where he was an expert on Russian aircraft of the fifties. He had a remarkable aptitude for accurate drawings even from very scarce information - these drawings were almost perfect when compared with better information available later.

Björn left school in the thirties to practice as an aviation mechanic. There he took care of aircraft like Waco, Stinson, Cierva C30 and Cub. In his spare time he made models and drew comic strips. At seventeen years old, in 1938, he was discovered by the editor of the magazine Flygning. During the following years he made many drawings for scale modelers and also drew front covers for the magazine. In 1941 he got the chance to do his first comic strip.

In his long career as an artist Björn was responsible for about a dozen different comic strips, one is still published daily in Svenska Dagbladet, the second largest newspaper in Stockholm. He also illustrated a number of Biggles albums and designed covers for books in many countries.

As a constructor and designer Björn worked on industrial projects, for example trains, boats, lorries, small motor bikes and even a fancy sports car - the SAAB Sonett II. He has also designed small things like refrigerators and outboard engines.

Many people appreciated the work that Björn did during almost half a century. International FAI gave Björn the "Diplome Paul Tissander". Swedish organizations also awarded Björn medals for his work.

In a series of books we offer Björn's accumulated works. We start with primary and secondary trainers* of the Royal Swedish Air Force and continue with Swedish fighters in the next book. Later in the series are books with the rest of the Swedish military aircraft, civil aircraft and other interesting collections of Björn's drawings.

Freddy Stenbom

* Ö stands for secondary trainers, Sk stood for primary trainers in the beginning but was later on used for both primary and secondary trainers.

Below is a list of the series of books we offer with Björn Karlström's aircraft drawings. The drawings are in scale 1:72 and 1:50 (some are in scale 1:144). There are specifications and information regarding painting and markings in each volume. There are also more than a hundred pictures in each book, some of each type, which makes these volumes perfect for the scale modeller - R/C scale builder or plastic modeller. Many of the pictures are in full colour. Both English and Swedish text.