Our friend Allan Jeffery sent over some photos of the Nakajima Ki-115 "Tsurugi" at Pima Air & Space Museum. He mentioned that according to the museum staff, the airframe is still in the original paint.
Thank you very much Allan!
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6 comments:
++Good! Looks like I can now build my Special Hobby Ki-115... Thanks for posting! - Bill Rutherford
Amazing! I would love to see the paint analyzed for for chemical composition, it might cut down on some debates/arguments in some circles. I like that it's kept in original condition as a complete historical record.
Really weird. It looks like built from different pices. Unpainted top of the wings... painted undersides!!! And the body.... I think it could be some anti rust paint? According to known B/W photos it could be... unpainted or painted in dark color but all the airframe...
I agree with zegeye and also have doubts about the originality of this specimen. Natural metal wings which look like painted on the underside? Fuselage in anti-corrosive paint or badly weathered olive-brown? Why are the hinomarus on the underside nearly ripped off? I don't believe that this has a 'natural' cause.
Compare with the pictures of Ki-115 in REVI II-4003 'Japanese WWII Aircraft in Colour' by Martin Ferkl. It seems to be the same plane - dismantled and with different colour underneath...
My personal impression is that it is not an original paint but the rust. All the rivets made of duralumin are clearly visible and unpainted on the "painted" fuselage and cowling...maybe the difference between steel and duralumin parts? I visited Pima last month - the personel in the hangar are volunteers, not experts on particular a/c and they are able to provide the basic info only.
I see the photos in REVI II-4003. It appears that while cleaning up the surface for this display some of the hinomaru paint was also taken off.
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