Kawasaki Ki-48 "Sokei" (Lily) by Panagiotis Koubetsos WIP#1

My next project is about a Type 99 Ki-48 "Sokei" somewhere in New Guinea in 1943. The diorama will also include an Isuzu fuel truck or a Toyota starter truck or even both! The kit comes from 1/48 AZ models with thick plastic, wrong nose shape and no detailing except for a styrene Nakajima Sakae set. Therefore it's recommended only to those who want to add a lot of scratchwork detailing and definitely not to beginners.
Starting with the cockpit apart from the other details  I also made the type 89 dual mount MG which I find very attractive, from a modeller's perspective of course!

Cheers,

Panagiotis Koubetsos

 

AMAZING work Panagioti!!!! Absolutely incredible considering a big part will not be visible once the kit is closed.

Nakajima B5N "Kate" remains - Trincomalee, Sri Lanka

Perhaps you remember our February posting (here) about the first Pacific War victory of IJNAF ace pilot Iwamoto Tetsuzo during the Easter Sunday Raid against Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

Mr. Dharshana Jayawardena, a diver from Sri Lanka, shared with us a few photos from a Nakajima B5N "Kate" crash site during the attack on Trincomalee Harbour on April 9, 1942.

Wiki mentions: "According to eye witness Michael Tomlinson (author of The Most Dangerous Moment and RAF Station Intelligence Officer at Ratmalana and later at China Bay in Trincomalee), one Japanese pilot deliberately crashed his plane into one of the giant fuel tanks just north of China Bay aerodrome. Inside the aircraft were three Japanese — Shigenori Watanabe, Tokya Goto, and Sutomu Toshira. After carefully circling the area they plunged unerringly into the tank igniting their own funeral pyre. The resulting fire lasted seven days. Parts of the aircraft's engine and the flattened remains of the fuel storage tank have been placed in a barbed wire enclosure 1 ½ km from the turn off at the 4th mile post on the Trincomalee-Habarana Road."

All photos by Mr. Dharshana Jayawardena except when noted otherwise. 

The sign at the crash site

Aircraft remains

Photo by: Jayesh Nanayakkara, Sri Lanka

 

 And the fuel tank remains

Mr. Jayawardena is one of the contributing divers to the "Dive Sri Lanka" website with many interesting ship-wreck and beautiful underwater photos.

On THIS page there are photos of aircraft wrecks but the identity of the plane(s) is not clear. British or Japanese? Can our readers proficient in non-Japanese aircraft types offer their help?

Also, Mr. Jayawardena explained: A few days ago I dived a site where a fisherman had found a piece of aluminum and thought it was a plane and informed me. At 42m I found a wing, two tires and part of the engine with the propeller.
HERE is the video Mr. Jayawardena shot.
What type of aircraft do you think this is?
 

We are particularly thankful to Mr. Jayawardena and Mr. Nanayakkara for their contribution to our blog.

Nakajima Ki-84 "Hayate" 1/48

This is my first model in 1/48 in more than 20 years! The kit is the very old and terrible in every respect Otaki. Very poor wing-fuselage fit, misaligned wings and fuselage and too many "rivets". Didn't care about detailing, wanted to practise with the paints, wash and just have fun with it which I did. 

Paints: I used Mr Color #127 Nakajima cockpit color, Mr Color Spray #129 Dark Green (Nakajima) for the upper surfaces and the propeller and Tamiya TS-17 gloss aluminum for the lower surfaces.

I used the kit's terrible hinomaru decals that turned out more brown than red and for the first time used Flying Papas decals to depict a "Hayate" belonging to the Army Special Attack Unit 185th Shinbutai.

 

 

The Flying Papas decals were simply amazing and I highly recommend them!!! Thin with excellent registration they look absolutely fabulous. They are exclusively available outside Japan through our on-line shop (HERE) and for those interested in more non-Japanese subjects check here for 1/144, here for 1/72 and here for 1/48 and 1/32. Simply send us an email (arawasiorder@arawasi.jp) with the decal sets you are interested in and we'll get back to you with prices.

Kawanishi K-7A

Continuing with the seaplane posting streak, a rather rare photo of a Kawanishi K-7A, registered J-COBC. As wiki says (HERE) "The K-7A entered service on Nippon Koku's service between Osaka and Fukuoka in January 1925, mainly carrying airmail rather than passengers. The K-7A proved successful in service, one carrying mail from Fukuoka and Shanghai, China, a distance of over 950 kilometers (590 mi) in May 1926...".

Note the mail marking behind the civilian registration. As wiki again explains: "The symbol of a post office in Japan is a stylized katakana syllable te (テ), 〒. This is used on the signs of post offices, on post boxes, and it is also sometimes used before the postcode on letters. This mark is derived from the Japanese word teishin (communications)."

 

Kawanishi H6K "Mavis" by Mark Jahsan WIP#1

Greetings all. First I want to thank Arawasi for letting me post some pictures of my 1/48 Combat Models H6K "Mavis". Trust me, I will learn more about the Mavis than I’ll teach, but I have found a method for building large vacuform kits that works for me. Hopefully it will motivate others to try something unusual- if I ever build a 109, it will be the Japanese test aircraft! 

  The picture on the plans shows my start. I cut partial bulkeads, then use lots of scrap triangles to buttress them. Most planes will use a pass-through spar, Mavis used a bunch of struts to attach the parasol wing. You can see the support I put into the midsection, struts will pass through the cut slots and be epoxied into place.

Once that’s done, I’ll go back and start adding detail. Not a whole lot on the interior for reference, so I make my best guess and install some equipment. Once it’s sealed up, it’ll look like there’s something in there, not just an empty cavern. The cockpit crew stations sit on supports above and next to the central walkway.  

In the shot of the cockpit, you can see how I filled the keel with epoxy- easier than trying to match angles for joining tabs. Next step will be to do seams and the surface of the fuselage- you can see what looks like wood grain in the plastic, like they didn’t seal the forms after carving.

  That way I can do all the dirty work and wash it out real good, then finish by installing the cockpit (not done yet) in through the top. Last will be all the glass, I’ll tape over the strut slots and it should be sealed with no chance for dust to get inside- fingers crossed.

I’ll post progress as I make it. I started a new restaurant four months ago, so it may be sporadic, but model building is a good escape, I need to keep up with it for my own sanity!

Mark Jahsan - Michigan, USA

Seaplanes in the South Pacific

Some stills today from a vintage news reel from the NHK collection. The date is October 1942 and the exact location is not specified except for the general South Pacific.

 

In the first three a number of Type 0 Reconnaissance Seaplanes or Aichi E13A1s are seen resting on a beech. The tail marking of one of them is fairly visible and it looks like starting with the letter "R". This would mean that they probably belong to the Seaplane Tender Kiyokawa Maru which was operating in the Rabaul, Kavieng, Salamaua and Tulagi areas at the time.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the stills feature Type 95 Reconnaissance Seaplanes or Nakajima E8N having their engine dismounted, their crews briefed and taking off armed with two 30kg bombs on another mission. Unfortunately the tail marking is not visible.

 

Mitsubishi J2M3 "Raiden" (Jack) by Bernhard Tomaschitz - WIP#6

The sixth part of building SWS J2M3 "Raiden", the finish, final assembly and detailing.
I added some details like lighting unit on the right and left cockpit sides and four fuel caps on the wing and fuselage. The model is represented in the state of a finished engine overhaul, refuelling and rearming.
All the assembling steps of the kit are wonderful. But I miss on the instruction some detailed information about the real operative aircraft, like the positioning of the aerial. The lighting units in the cockpit are also omitted. The information of the real aircraft in the concept note don't explain how rearming and refuelling was done. Moving such big panels for rearming on the wing of such a big plane must have been a burden. Whoever worked on such a plane or whoever climbed in such a cockpit can tell you.
The weathering was done in the fast way by chipping and painting. No oil color in the panel lines since pre-shading was done. Otherwise it would have been overdone.
IN CONCLUSION: This kit is wonderful!!! Nevertheless, the extra parts like the interior etched parts and the outer canon barrels must be corrected and improved (Zoukei Mura told me to do so). More accurate drawings in the instruction manual for the gun sight assembly would help more unskilled and uninformed modeller. Decal quality should be improved to a standard used in Tamiya kits. It is a pity, to spoil at the very end such a wonderful model.
The way Zoukei Mura is going is to my opinion the best trend-setter in the modelling world. In combination with more accurate etched parts and more operative information, they could achieve a further milestone.
Sincerely
DI Bernhard A. Tomaschitz  IPMS-Austria

 

P.S. Special thanks to Arawasi for the kit.

Thank you too Bernhard for the WIP which we are sure many modellers will find most helpful.

 

WIP#1, WIP#2, WIP#3, WIP#4, WIP#5

 

Mitsubishi F1M "Reikan" (Pete)

A Type 0 Observation Seaplane or Mitsubishi F1M "Reikan" (Pete) is flying over Rabaul, New Britain island. It belongs to the 958th Kokutai which was organised on December 1, 1942 in Rabaul with floatplanes from the seaplane tender Kiyokawa Maru becoming part of the 8th Fleet. On May 1, 1944 the unit became part of the 11th Air Fleet and was based in Rabaul until the end of the War. The photo was taken in the spring of 1943. 

 

Yokosuka K4Y1

A Navy Type 90 Seaplane Trainer or Yokosuka K4Y1 is pushed inside the hangar after the completion of the days training. It belongs to Tsuchiura Kokutai as indicated by the tail marking " ツチ-610" (TsuChi-610). The fuselage hinomaru with the white surround indicate that this particular seaplane was finished in overall trainer orange/yellow.