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I built this kit back in the Dark Ages, and while I've had another in the stash for about 20 years, I was not inclined to build it, mostly because of the very poor canopy. Then as luck would have it, I bought a Mistercraft (ex-ZTS Plastyk?) kit that had a spare canopy included by mistake. It looks as if it will fit with a bit of work. I also took a couple of the under-wing bombs and crutches. The artwork and subject choices are at odds. The Roy Cross artwork shows a Lexington-class carrier being attacked on the open sea. The subjects are from Akagi and Soryu, from the Pearl Harbour attack. Neither carrier was at Coral Sea where the Lexington was sunk, and the Saratoga was not at Midway, where Akagi and Soryu were amongst the Japanese carriers sunk. However, I won't lose any sleep over this. A closer look at the replacement parts. I have also grabbed a couple of Matchbox figures from the spares box. I have chosen these over spare Airfix figures, on the basis that IJN crew at the time would not have had life jackets, but I could be wrong. I could have gone further with a replacement main bomb. I have both boxings of the Airfix B5N, and a Fujimi B6N with 5 different stores loads. But I'm trying to avoid cannibalising stash kits if I can. Colours are frequently an issue with Japanese aircraft. For the cockpit, Airfix specifies Hu 89. I may mix something with a blue-green metallic tinge, which I believe is the correct interior colour for the D3A. I haven't decided yet which of the two schemes I will depict: The overall IJN Grey aircraft from Akagi, or the IJN Dark Green over IJN Grey aircraft from Soryu.

October 11th, 1948 In the chaos and confusion of the conflict against the forces of Syngman Rhee, a group of former IJAF and IJNAF turned Worker's Party of South Korea guerillas had begun a monumental endeavor. Knowing that the resistance would inevitably fall without some form of trump card to balance the odds, they had started to renovate a number of former Japanese aircraft located in hidden hangers on the island, dating back to the Second World War and whose existence was only known by the personnel who hid them. Though highly restricted in almost every measure possible, their efforts had finally readied a motley collection of IJNAF/IJAF aircraft, including D3A1/2s, Ki-51s and C6N1s to fly in attacks on the air-vulnerable South Korean army, to devastating effect... Alright, backstory over. I might continue it later with a number of different models... In all seriousness though, I did enjoy this build, although a few of the techniques I used did not work as well as I would have wanted, such as painting the decals, accidentally contaminating the Clear, etc... Nonetheless, I feel satisfied with it. As for construction, it was all out-of-box, bar the central and right bombs, which came from a Tamiya J1N1 and an unknown kit respectively. The only issues I found with the kit were that: A: The wing to fuselage joint is oddly-shaped, which resulted in a rather large gap that could not be satisfactorily filled with filler, B: The construction of the gunner's mount is vague at best, with various loose hinges giving the form of the completed result, pointing the seat at a 65 degree angle. Normally, this would not be such an issue, but given how cramped the gunner's position is without the mounting, as well as the fact that glue can only be applied once everything is all put together means that it took a solid 2 hours to wrestle it into place. As for markings, they fictional, taking inspiration from the early Indonesian Air Force roundel by overpainting the supplied Hinomarus with the South Korean flag's blue, and the fin-flash is the orange (or as close as I could get with my peeling spare Canberra decals) stripes of the People's Republic of Korea, the first government to exist after the end of the Japanese occupation. The camouflage is the regular IJN Green over Grey, with stripes of red-brown painted as make-shift additions to help better conceal the aircraft. Last of all, you will have to forgive me for the poor background (my workbench), poor photography (my 7 year-old phone and questionable photography 'skills') and even poorer lighting, as being occupied for most of the day led to it being nightfall far before I could take photographs. Please feel free to comment and critique, another opinion other than my own would be much appreciated. In any case, I wish all of you who are still in the 25th a very Merry Christmas, and to everyone a good night. ...Unless you are in somewhere other than Oceana or the Americas, in which case Good Day! Sincerely, Hurricaneflyer

For the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I had chosen to build one of the perpetrators of that raid. I was told that japanese naval aircraft early in the war were kept in pristine condition so I did very little weathering to it. Other than the red stripes not quite aligning on the starboard landing gear leg, I was satisfied with this one.

The empire is hard at work below decks preparing for December 7th. This is my first attempt at painting my own insignias, but I guess there's nothing easier than Japanese roundels.

The detail on Hasegawa's D3A1 is already quite good, I just added a few copper wires and photo etch.

For the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor coming up in a month, my next build will be one of the perpetrators of that attack. I hope to release the Let's Build video and the showcase photos on December 7th. Stay tuned.