MDriskill

For whatever it's worth now that your model is done! 😛 These superb new-to-me photos of "374-4," showing both sides, recently appeared on Facebook. The serial number (M.M. 9586 AS) is a "Serie X" Breda-built machine, constructed around September 1942. Excellent closeup of weathering. The shot in my post above is from the same squadron, but the "smoke ring" camo indicates a Macchi-built aircraft. An unusual feature of this aircraft is that the left side appears to have an early-style tailplane, and the right side a late one with elevator tip counterweight! The latter has a rather non-standard style of camouflage as well.

Very beautiful build, of the most beautiful (IMHO) Mirage! Outstanding in every way.

Really beautiful model! Those CP kits are amazing and you've done it full justice.

That is correct. For many years, this part was accidentally swopped on two Doras in the US! This led to a lot of confusion in kits and published drawings, but both now have their correct bits.

I recently finished a 1/72 C.202, for which I looked at a LOT of photos! I can vouch that pics of the undersurfaces of wartime machines are weirdly scarce. It's hard to verify any sort of detail there. In general it seems that even well-used, desert-based aircraft do not show heavy weathering. It appears - to me at least - that Italian paint was good quality, and field maintenance standards pretty decent. You seldom see severe paint chipping, extensive exhaust staining, or other extreme effects. Typical wing root wear - dirt, scuffing down to a little bare metal, but exhaust soot wiped down and not much missing paint. Heavier than average exhaust stains, some leakage from the oil pressure relief vent on the cowl, blowback drips from the oil cooler, burnt steel/rusty exhaust pipes. But no paint chiping even on high-contact panel edges, small access hatches, cowl latches, etc. My model for what it's worth! 😛

I may be misunderstanding what you're referring to, but the D-9 DID have an odd-looking recess between the wheel wells. The rear part of it was "inherited" from the common wing structure with the A-series, where it part of the formed the sloped exhaust channel for a group of exhausts. The front of the recess (which got deeper on the A) was re-shaped to form a shallow vent at the rear of the engine cowl. Later Dora versions (2-stage supercharger, no nose guns) eliminated this and had a flush fairing here.

As BS-w noted, the guns are not located to match some arbitrary external geometry, but for practical reasons. Viewed from above, the three outboard guns in the wing are each staggered to the rear of its inboard neighbor, their breeches thus in successively thinner sections of the airfoil. Viewed from the front, each one must drop a bit, to create room above the breech for its ammo chute to connect. To put it another way, the space between the top of each gun's breech, and the under surface of the wing skin above it, is about the same.

Very interesting comments! I have been known to do the same thing - but looking through the telescope in the other direction! 🙂 I have occasionally bought good 1/48 or 1/32 kits to use as a "3D reference" for detailing older, less detailed 1/72 ones. Circling back to your original question, I would think either the Hasegawa or Revell 1/32 would work pretty well for your purpose. But an even higher level of detail could be found in an aftermarket A-8 cockpit - Aires and Eagle Editions make nice ones for these kits.

I have the Mushroom, Koku-Fan FAOW, and Maru Mechanic monographs on the A5M series. None of them has a plan view of the A5M1, though the MM does have this large, clear photo looking up into the forward wing root: AVI Models makes a 1/72 kit of the A5M1. There is no discernible difference between its forward wing root and that of Fujimi's A5M2a. The AVI kit looks quite good by the way, in the box at least (they also make the A5M3 inline-engine prototype and A5M4-K trainer). It shows a certain Fujimi influence but is more crisply molded, with more interior detail. Here's a nice build of it: https://www.modelforum.cz/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=127812

I agree backdating a 1/72 A-8 to an early short-nose variant is not worth doing. The Tamiya A-3 is a lovely and easy-to-build kit, but IMHO has a significant accuracy bust: the cockpit is too far forward, putting the windscreen at much too vertical an angle - very noticeable to my eye. This photo shows a Tamiya fuselage half (top) against an AZ A-2 kit, which suffers from all the usual lim-run caveats, but has the cockpit geometry dead on. This is a bit off the wall, but the Eduard A-5 kit may be a better candidate for a conversion. The nose needs to be shortened but most everything else would be correct for a late-build A-4 (some of which even had the later louvered vents behind the cowl). (edit) per PatG's note below, the Zvezda A-4 may be the best alternative of all! Duhhh...

Blimpyboy: Thanks for excellent pics! I'd forgotten about the "Model Art" Imperial Japanese Navy Seaplanes issue, which does have some excellent details on the E7K, and quite a few other aircraft as well. Here are two articles from the "Aviation of Japan" blog on the AVI kits. Some color scheme and interior info included. http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2022/08/avi-models-172-kawanishi-e7k1-and-e7k2.html http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2023/11/aichi-e71k-alf-in-172-by-rob-ronconi.html

The Maru Mechanic monographs do show up for sale online, often at favorable prices (perhaps underestimated because of their age?). IMHO this is still the primo reference on the "Alf," with unmatched interior detail and superb drawings. Note the series was twice re-printed in hardbound format (which bundle two or three monographs per volume), first as Mechanic of World Aircraft, then in slightly reduced size as Mechanism of Military Aircraft, which hopefully widens the search field. Avonmore's "Pacific Profiles Vol. 8," IJN Floatplanes in the South Pacific 1942-1944, has well-researched unit histories and a few color profiles (only E7K2's though). No. 47 in the later black-cover "Famous Airplanes of the World" series from Koku-Fan, Imperial Japanese Navy Reconnaissance Seaplanes, has some good photo coverage, and many other Japanese-language publications have some info. Excellent 1/72 kits of both the E7K1 and E7K2 - each in 2 different boxings - were recently issued by AVI. Pricey, but quite an improvement on the old Hasegawa E7K1. I believe Rising has done some decal sheets, which are typically well-researched enough to stand as references.

Good choice, the Revell 190 make a gorgeous model and the full engine, etc., is a major advantage. I too rather favor the Hasegawa kits overall though - accurate, crisp, and fairly simple. They have been re-released in different versions and markings several times since their introduction; here in the US at least they are usually not too hard to find. My biggest complaint with them (and most other Fw 190A-8 kits) is the exaggerated shape of the bulges over the nose guns. But there are good aftermarket alternatives...or you can avoid the issue entirely with one of Hasegawa's A-5 or A-6 boxings. A most interesting recent large-scale kit of the 190 is the Border Models one in 1/35 "tank scale." It does have a couple of odd goofs caused by confusion between variants (it is really an A-6), but has a very accurate overall shape and is highly detailed. https://www.themodellingnews.com/2022/10/a-new-wurger-on-way-from-border-in-35th.html Don't forget that Airfix makes a nice, if old, 1/24 scale Fw 190A-6; and that Zoukei Mura has just released a 1/32 A-4, with more variants to follow.

Very interesting topic! I have read that Italian pilots also complained about this. The C.200, C.202, and Re.2001 didn't have the most robust armament fit to begin with - two 12.7mm machine guns - and they fired through the prop. But one advantage of centrally-mounted guns is they always shoot straight ahead! Widely-separated wing-mounted guns were calibrated to converge at a given distance, adding more interesting variables to their setup.

This lengthy but VERY thorough thread from another forum has about all you'd want to know about the Hasegawa and Revell 1/32 Fw 190's. https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/56507-revel-and-hasegawa-fw-190f-8-kits-a-comparison/

MigModeller, to be clear my post and photo just above were not intended to deride you in any way, and I apologize if it seemed so. It WAS intended to poke fun at the old and inaccurate Aoshima "Myrt" kit. It was a good pioneering effort - and a worthy challenge for those who enjoy building nostalgic kits - but as a "serious" replica, far surpassed by later 1/72 kits. Here is the best set of drawings I can find online, but apparently one must sign up for this site to get them at a decent resolution: https://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/ww2planes/ww2-nakajima/78816/view/nakajima_c6n1_saiun_myrt/ The best drawings I know of are in printed sources. If you will forgive the terrible phone pic quality, this fantastic set of 1/72 drawings, with colored interior detail, is from the classic Maru Mechanic monographs of the 1980's (this series was re-printed in various formats as Mechanic of World Aircraft, and Mechanism of World Aircraft, and can often be found online): The best current source I know of is this Famous Airplanes of the World monograph, from the publishers of "Koku-Fan" magazine. It has superb multi-view drawings of all C6N variants in about 1/68 scale, plus a tremendous amount of interior and other detail photos and drawings. This issue no. 108 has since been reprinted in an "extended" version as no. 206, too. It's truly a "one-stop shop" for the Myrt.

Great info in this thread! So...please forgive this "philosophical" detour! 😀 The question brings up an interesting point of artistic license: if the actual aircraft could be parked with the flaps down, and you'd like to model it that way - why not? Typical procedure or not - if mechanically possible, it's not "wrong," and can add much visual interest to a model. (Some a/c are different though - e.g., the F4F Wildcat. Flaps dropped by vacuum cylinders, and raised by springs as pressure bled off after engine shutdown. You couldn't park one with flaps down unless the system was opened for maintenance.)

I occasionally spend a weekend with a small gang of modeling pals. Once, our theme was: pick a 1/72 scale whatever that you need to get out of your stash; finish it in one day; no paint allowed. My choice was the Aoshima Myrt (the Airfix F-111, Heller Hellcat, Academy Wildcat, and FROG Barracuda also made appearances). There might have been alcohol involved. I leave you to your own conclusions, but this kit is at least a testament to how far our hobby has progressed since 1963. Again - the real C6N had an ingeniously engineered, relatively small, NON-FOLDING wing.

As noted above...hard to beat the "Aviation of Japan" site. Scroll down a bit here and you will see a brilliant little chart comparing actual colors measured from the "Myrt" at the Smithsonian Institute, with various established technical color standards. Also in the link is a lovely build of the excellent Hasegawa 1/48 kit, in prototype colors. http://www.aviationofjapan.com/search?q=C6n+saiun+myrt

My favorite feature of the pre-historic 1/72 Aoshima C6N kit is the folding wings. Which the actual aircraft did NOT have! The 1994-vintage 1/72 Fujiimi kits are naturally vastly better, and have seen many box art/decal re-releases (which may solve the decal issue?). It was issued in recon and night fighter boxings, plus the C6N2 turbo prototype. Sword did a new-tool 1/72 kit in 2013. I've never seen one in person, but reviews of it look impressive - exterior similar to Fujimi, but more interior detail. The details and release timing of some Sword 1/72 kits hint that they use good larger-scale kits as a reference, so this kit might be related to... ...the excellent 1/48 2002-vintage Hasegawa kits, which (much as this old 72-scale diehard hates to admit) are superb, and easily the best of this attractive aircraft. Another interesting C6N kit is the Tamiya one from 1965. Excellent for its day - maybe the best of their old 1/50 scale line - and included nice interior detail, which you can display via a clear plastic fuselage half.

Mr. Russell has picked the best sheets out there! For Japanese a/c in general, you can't do better than the "Aviation of Japan" site. Use their internal search engine to explore whatever machine you are pursuing. http://www.aviationofjapan.com

The Wildcat has suffered countless copycat errors in kits and published drawings over the years. Mr. Temma is a treasure; his F4F drawings are the best out there by far - and were used to design the Arma 1/72 kits. A wonderful "modeller's shot" of an FM-1 for comparison (note missing tailwheel - ouch!). Also note the bulge behind the outboard gun is bigger, as it sits further aft in a shallower part of the wing - many kits make all these bulges the same size.

Thanks! The heating elements are most interesting - and new to this old 190 fan. The de-icing tubes did use gas. Note in the diagram that they are connected to a fuel line.

The underwing ammo doors of the the folding-wing Wildcats are a long-standing pet peeve of mine, and goofed up on most kits. The two inner guns' ammo boxes are accessed by ONE door. Most kits - due to misinterpretation the maintenance manual diagrams' depiction of the ammo box locations - split the door into two fictitious skinny ones. 1. The Hasegawa F4F-4 / Martlet II boxings have the erroneous split inner door. 2. The Hasegawa FM-1 / Martlet V boxings simply omit the access doors for the outer guns from the F4F-4 moldings. OK for the top of the wing, but now the split underside door is also too short! 3. The Arma F4F-4 has a correct single inner door. 4. The Arma FM-2 has a correct, lengthened single door. 5. The Arma FM-1 / Martlet V has a PE overlay to "stretch" the door (it has the F4F-4 wing - not the FM-2 one - as the FM-1 kept the underwing oil coolers absent from the FM-2). 6. The Airfix F4F-4 and Martlet IV have the split inner door (and a lot of other problems).

I don't see any images, and can't google up the part numbers, so am confused. Are we talking heating or cleaning?