History
The
Mitsubishi Hyakushiki Shitei was deemed to be one of the best Japanese aircraft.
Developed as a high-altitude, high-speed reconnaissance aircraft, it proved to
be quite successful throughout the Pacific war by the Japanese Army.
The Hyakushiki Shitei was then developed into a high-altitude interceptor
to fight off the American B-29's which were conducting daylight raids over
Japan. So in June 1943, the Japanese Army Aeronautical Research Institute
began studying the possibility of adapting the Hyakushiki Shitei, which at the
time one of the few operational aircraft in the Japanese Army to have the
required performance for this type of operation. In May 1944, the project
was approved and was urgently carried out. The Hyakushiki Shitei was fitted out
with two 20mm machine guns on the nose and the forward fuselage fuel tanks were
replaced. The nose canopy was modified to a “stepped” nose housing. The
Hyakushiki Shitei’s with these modifications were known as the Hyakushiki
Shitei III Kai Air Defence Fighter “Otsu” type. Although in July 1944
the Japanese Army deiced to add a 37mm dorsal cannon to fire forward and upward
at an angle of 70 degrease. The aircraft with this addition were known as
“Otsu + Hei” type. Since reconnaissance pilots flew most of these
aircraft with little dogfight experience, they made greater military gains
against the American B-29s proving the outstanding basic capability of the
Hyakushiki Shitei
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The Kit No.56
Tamiya
have provided a relatively well constructed kit, although very basic to build.
The exterior is well detailed with crisp panel lines. Tamiya have supplied the
modeler with a, choice of three different squadrons to finish the kit in.
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Construction
This
model was built OOB with no added on parts. The kit went together without a
hitch, no putty was required in the construction of this kit although when I
constructed this kit back in 2001 I didn’t know anything about the putty range
for model kits, or that there was such a thing as after market parts/resin for
model kits. Not until my first Model Expo. Because the cockpit on this kit could
do with some after market parts, it’s very basic. That’s why I ended up
sticking the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit just to fill up some space.
Although the fuselage, wings and Ha-112-II engines are nicely detailed, the
canopies however seem to be a little to big for the fuselage as they seem to
over hang when placed on, so a little squeeze when gluing them to the fuselage
helped in getting them to sit in the right position.
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Paint and finish
This
was the first kit that I had ever painted using an airbrush; I didn’t even
have the airbrush compressor (I brought that mid last year). Before I got the
compressor, I started using the aerosol packs, but that turned out to be too
expensive, then I went to using old car tires for a sauce of air, but got fed up
with them running out of air half way though painting not only that I smashed my
car pumping the darn things up at the garage. So in November 2002 I brought the
airbrush compressor and have never looked back, best darn investment ever.
Anyhow, I guess I've strayed off the track so back to the Paint and Finish, I
think I used an aerosol can to propel my airbrush at the time of this kit using
Humbrol paints. The top of the aircraft was painted using Humbrol matt 29
and the belly was.....well......I can’t remember the number, but it was a
light gray. This was also the first attempt at doing smokey soot around the
cowling, which I sprayed on with the airbrush. I used a gloss black as well as
some gloss white to get some sort of a sooty burnt exhaust affect. I thought all
an all it turned out quite good for a first attempt, I now prefer to do the
sooty burnt exhaust stains with pastel these days, and I think that it gives a
better affect. Out of the range of decals that Tamiya supplied, I chose to do
the Hyakushiki Shitei III from the 17th Dokuritsu Hikotai.
Alan
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