Visitors - The British Connection

On March 25, 1924 Squadron Leader Archibald Stuart Charles Stuart-MacLaren, Flying Officer William Noble Plenderleith, Sergeant W. H. Andrews of the Royal Air Force set off from Calshot in a Vickers Vulture II amphibious bi-plane (G-EBHO) in an eastbound attempt to circumnavigate the world. They arrived in Kasumigaura on July 8, photo below, after many mishaps but the attempt ultimately led to failure when their aircraft crashed on August 4 in the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea.
More details HERE.

On THIS pdf file we have uploaded from JACAR a number of interesting messages from the British Counsellor in Tokyo at the time Michael Palairet regarding this flight.

Mitsubishi G3M "Nell" - Kanoya Kokutai

A photo of a Type 96 Attack Bomber or Mitsubishi G3M2 Model 22 "Nell" belonging to the Kanoya Kokutai. A larger version of the same photo is featured in Richard M. Bueschel's "96 Rikko - in Japanese Naval Air Service" published by Schiffer and according to the caption it was taken in the summer of 1941 during a raid against Chungking. Unfortunately the published photo is too dark and most of the details, particularly the two tone top camouflage (green and sandy brown), get lost. 

Artist Nohara Shigeru includes artwork of a "Y-309" in the Model Art #406 "Camouflage & Markings of Imperial Japanese Navy Bombers in W.W.II". Unfortunately it is very inaccurate. First of all the artwork depicts a G3M2 Model 21 (with two retractable turrets) when the plane in the photo is clearly a 22 (with one retractable and one dome). The camouflage pattern is depicted in reverse and there is no white fuselage band. Other markings include a white band on the tail's edge and narrow red band over the tail marking. Nohara mentions that the tail marking is in yellow but to my eyes it looks probably white.

The artwork caption offers some very interesting and useful information though. Kanoya used the letter "Y" for the unit marking from the spring of 1938 to the summer of 1940. In the summer of 1940 the numbers 301~319 were reserved for the 1st Chutai and the numbers 320~339 for the 2nd Chutai. The letter "Y" changed to "K" from November 1940.    

Mitsubishi G4M1 "Hamaki"

Four photos today from a vintage September 15, 1943 magazine featuring a Navy Type 1 Attack Bomber Model 12 or Mitsubishi G4M1 being maintained and getting ready for another mission somewhere in the South Pacific. I hope you find them inspirational diorama ideas. 

 

 

Kawasaki KDA-3, Ajia Koku Gakko & female pilots

A photo from a vintage January 1935 magazine. The captions says:

"Last year two members of our female pilot group flew to Manchukuo for the first time. We have high hopes that this will promote female aviation in our school. In the photo below, taken during their first flight of the year, four members of the Ajia Koku Gakko are featured, from left: Mses Murakami, Matsumoto, Hisada, Ikemura. The female group includes more members like Mses Mabuchi and Suwa but overall chief of the female group is Ms Matsumoto." 

 

The first female pilot who flew to Manchukuo was Ms Matsumoto Kiku who made the flight from October 22, 1934 to November 4 with a Salmson 2A2 named "Shiragiku", becoming the first Japanese female pilot to complete an overseas flight. The second was Ms Mabuchi Choko who took-off from Haneda on October 26, 1934 and arrived in Changchun on November 5, also with a Salmson 2A2 but named "Kicho" (Yellow Butterfly; her name "Choko" means "Miss Butterfly").

Ajia Koku Gakko (Asia Aviation School, a.k.a. Ajia Kokukikan Gakko - Asia Aero-engine School) was founded on May 19, 1933 by pilot Iinuma Kintaro. The school was located at Susaki airfield, Tokyo.

The girls are sitting on a rather rare Japanese X-plane; one of the Kawasaki KDA-3 prototypes. Wiki has a nice article about the type HERE. Ajia Koku Gakko received the third prototype which took the civilian registration J-BEYF and was modified to a two-seater.

Note the school marking on the fuselage sides and on the wings based on the "A" kanji for Ajia; 亜細亜, and the school name on the hangars. The type of the aircraft in the background registered J-BLES is unknown.

Kawanishi N1K1-J "Shiden" by Jean Barby

An absolutely brilliant Kawanishi N1K1-J Otsu "Shiden" by our friend Jean Barby. This particular plane, 210-149, belonged to the Tokushima branch of the 210Ku. The drop tank could hold 400l and the kanji in white above the tail marking is probably the first one in the name of the maintenance crew member responsible for this plane. The name of the pilot is unknown.

 

 

 

 

Vintage Magazine Cover

"Asahi Graph", August 26, 1942

The photo caption reads: "Navy Eagles are taking off at night to look for the enemy".

The 1/72 Collection of Mr. Peter Havel

Today we feature the collection of Mr. Peter Havel, the former chairman of IPMS Austria. A very active member and one of the best modellers of the group. Beside cars he has a soft spot for Japanese aircraft. The models are:

Nakajima Ki-27 - Hasegawa, Mitsubishi Ki-67 "Hiryu" - LS, Mitsubishi A6M2 - Hasegawa, Mitsubishi J2M3 "Raiden" - Tamiya, Yokosuka R2Y "Keiun" - Fine Molds. Kawasaki Ki-61 "Hien" - Hasegawa

All models are in scale 1:72.

 

 

Nedinsco type handheld 25cm aerial camera

 

The cover of the April 29, 1942 issue of "Asahi Graph" features a "navy eagle" taking photos with his hand held aerial camera commonly known in the IJNAF as "Nedinsco".

 

From HERE we read:

The first aerial camera used by the Japanese air forces in some quantity was the Nedinsco FK I. (Nedinsco was a Dutch branch of Carl Zeiss, and "FK" perhaps means Fliegerkamera.) It was adopted by the Japanese Army as the 25cm Aerial Camera (二十五糎航空写真機), named after its 25cm focal length. It was also used by the Navy as the Handheld Aerial Camera 25cm (手持式航空写真機二五糎).

The Nedinsco camera was later produced in Japan by Rokuoh-sha, perhaps after an official license was bought or as an unauthorized copy. Cameras made in the 1930s have a Hexar Ser.1 25cm f/4.5 lens. They were mostly retired from use when the Pacific War broke out.
The camera takes 13×18cm film plates. The rigid body is made of wood, with a characteristic octagonal front section, covered by a cap. There is a built-in grip on the left and a separate wooden handle on the right.
The focal-plane shutter is a separate unit, which can be slid out of the body for maintenance or repair. It has vertically travelling curtains, and the range of speeds is 1/90, 1/180, 1/375 and 1/750.

The aperture is set by an index at the top of the camera, in front of the identification plate, with f/4.5, f/6.3 and f/9 positions. There is an articulated mechanism placed around the lens, holding two filters controlled by external knobs on either side of the body.

We can add to the above that the rigid body was made of mahogany, the interior was covered by a black wool cloth while outside was covered with linen with waterproof paint applied. All this was done to protect the camera and the lenses.
A yellow glass filter was used to cut the blue and purple colour of the highly sensitive film. The camera could store six glass plates and as can be seen from the photos featured below remained in use but for training purposes.

 

The glass plates were made by Fuji.

Below is a Fuji ad of that era. Note the Nedinsco camera.

The captions reads:
"Fuji photography equipment
Dedicated to mass production
Doing our best to win
Film, dry plates, photographic paper
Fuji Photo Film Co."

Here's a photo of the real thing (from here)

Nipponki '46: Fugaku-kai G10N1a by Tanaka Shori

The "Fugaku" was a 1943 plan by Nakajima to bomb the USA with an aircraft that could be a combined IJNAF & IJAAF effort. But the US built first the B-29 and bombed Japan cancelling the plan.

The "Fugaku" project advanced until the engine construction stage a sample of which survives in Narita Museum.

Below is a model in 1/144 of a rather advanced what-if version by Tanaka Shori-san. Note the radar dome and the small jet engines, helpful during take-off. 

 

 

  

DATACrew: 6~8
Length: 46.0m
Span: 63.0m
Height: 10.90m
Weight: 42,000kg
Fully Equipped: 122,000kg
Engine: Six Nakajima HA-50, 2500HP plus small-size jet engines to assist during take-off
Max speed: 780km/h
Range: 18,800km
Service ceiling: 15,000m
Armament: 20mm cannonsX10
Bomb load: 15~20 ton

 

Tanaka Shori was born in Tsukushino city, Fukuoka prefecture. Near the end of the War ended he was elementary student sixth grade and he saw many tokotai planes taking off from nearby airfields. He was an eyewitness to 4th Sentai’s unit leader of the “Kaiten-tai” 2nd Lt Yamamoto when he rammed his Ki-45 "Toryu" on a B-29. He will never forget Yamamoto’s name written in hiragana on the crashed tail remains of the plane.

Building models of aircraft he saw as a child always bring back bitter memories.

After the War his father worked in a nearby US base which he visited very often and listened to jazz songs on the jukebox. Growing up he became a quite famous jazz singer and had the chance to meet and talk to many famous veteran pilots. His other hobby is photography and Tanaka-san has an incredible collection of vintage cameras.

He has released a small book with photos of his models and information about each aircraft.

 

2014

2014, the year of the horse.

We are confident and optimistic it will be better than 2013, the year of the snake, and Arawasi would like to wish you all a truly happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Rest assured we will continue our efforts with our blog. We hope you found at least some of the 200+ posts to your liking and stay tuned for our forthcoming publications we have scheduled for this year.

 

As always we would like to thank all our friends who visited this blog, left comments and contributed with useful information, photos of their models, artwork and other material. A big THANK YOU goes to:

Harold K, Alcides,George Bryant, fugaku, Ruy Vieira, Peter Dasso, Calin Ungureanu, Fluffy, Peter Monoton, Pat D, J Godwin, Mark H, Jim Nicoletti, pauli, Windswords, Edcraft, Graham Boak, Francisco, Ryan B, Ajay, Peter, g, Sidnei, Emilio, Rene de Koning, Meatloaf109 who left comments. Unfortunately our friend Luca Ruffato is no longer with us. He will be sorely missed.

We would particularly like to extend our appreciation to:

Panagiotis Koubetsos, Devlin Chouinard, Zygmunt Szeremeta, Jacob Terlouw, Ryszard Holak, Ed DeKiep, Yokokawa Yuichi, Jean Barby, zegeye, “Avion Road”, Bob Alford, Luigi Scarano, Cameron Lohman, “Fluffysmodels”, Thilo-Arndt Möller, Håkan Gustavsson, Kiriakos, Steve Diederich, Otsuki Hajime, Chas Bunch, Mark Smith, Fabrice Fanton, Bernhard Tomaschitz, Frau Verena Wirnig, Mr Paul Bors and everybody in IPMS Austria (see you in March) for their contributions and support.

 

2014年が皆様の健康と幸せな年でありますように！

ALL THE BEST FOR 2014!

ΕΥΤΥΧΙΣΜΕΝΟ ΤΟ 2014!