1/72 - Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi by Special Hobby (reissue) - released

Homebee · December 21, 2016

Special Hobby is to reissue in January 2017 its 1/72nd Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi kit.

Source: http://www.specialhobby.info/2016/12/special-hobby-newsletter-january.html

- ref. 100-SH72198 - Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi

Source: https://www.specialhobby.eu/en/our-own-production/special-hobby/nakajima-ki-115-tsurugi.html

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Following their defeat at the battle of Midway, the Japanese Empire lost also its strategic initiative in the Second World War and had to begin to think defensively. Because of the overwhelming supremacy of the Allied forces, a group of officers came up with the idea of suicidal attacks from the air. At first, standard airframes were used, which proved to be rather expensive and the development of a specialized, single-purpose aircraft was commenced. One of the so-called special attack machines was the Ki-115 Tsurugi. In January 1945, the Japanese Navy issued a special suicide attack aircraft specification which were handed over to Nakajima company.

The chief designer Kunihiro Aoki and his team came up with the Ki-115 project which was built from non-strategic materials and was meant to utilize a choice of several power plants, although in practice all of the machines built were equipped with Ha-115 powerplants. The type was to be armed with a semi-embedded bomb carried under the fuselage and a special, simple and jettisonable undercarriage was to be used to increase the aircraft´s performance after take off for the mission. As early as March 1945, first flight tests of the prototype machine took place, during which several problems occured, namely the view from the cockpit was insufficient during taxiing, the unsprung undercarriage legs caused considerable trouble and take off itself was aslo difficult. That all led to many alterations being implemented to the airframe, the most visible of which was the addition of the flaps on the wing trailing edge. By the end of the war, as many as 104 machines had been built, but none of them ever saw a real combat deployment, which is the reason that the type was not issued its Allied code name, as the Allies did not even know of this type. There were two more versions planned. Navy should have had their version which was to be known as the Toka, and the other was to be fitted with an enlarged wooden wing, but neither design left the drawing board before the end of the war.

The kit consists of one sprue of plastic parts, one with a clear part and a set of detailed resin parts. The decal sheet caters for three production machines in the markings of the Japanese Army.

- ref. 100-SH72199 - Nakajima Ki-115 "Battle of Tokio 1946"

Source: https://www.specialhobby.eu/en/our-own-production/special-hobby/nakajima-ki-115-battle-of-tokio-1946.html

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The kit contains the same sprues as the previous one but offers different camouflage options, now in so-called "What-If" schemes. A clear canopy sprue and detailed resin parts accompany the basic plastic sprue, and the decal sheet brings the option of one Japanese and two captured machines, one British, the other with US marking.