Lets be FRANK 1/48 Hasegawa 47th Sentai

[73north]

This model portrays an aircraft of the Headquarters flight from the 47th Sentai based at Narimasu Air Base near northwest Tokyo in 1945.

(The Superscale decal instructions stated that it was Narumatsu, but it was actually Narimasu - check your sources always!) 

The 47th Sentai was (along with the 244th Sentai flying the Ki-61) tasked with the main Air Defence of Tokyo and the surrounding areas.

This specific Aircraft is easily modelled using the basic Hasegawa kit (JT 67) .

I wanted an aircraft with an attractive camouflage scheme which took some searching online to find the aftermarket decals from SuperScale number 48-526.

I found the Hasegawa Model kit details to be very good, improved with the addition of 2 colour etch and flap sets from Eduard (48-503 and 49-297)

and the Fukuya Brass Pitot tube which is hollow at the tip and much more refined.

The etch set for the underwing flaps was an essential addition , as the Kit flaps are rather lacklustre and the etch set have holes in them with hugely

increase the appearance and Historical realism of the Model .

As is usual with my Japanese Fighters, I added the Vector Resin ‘Homare‘ Ha 45 engine to the Model replacing single Kit Part B1. 

The resin engine was not a perfect fit, but with some minor alterations to the cowling I was able to make it work .

This made a huge difference to the model I think, despite the engine cowling making it hard to easily see, but I know its there.

see the extra photos of the super-detailing added to the resin engine ...........

The only other modifications I added were drilling out the kit stub exhausts (there are no Frank resin 1/48 exhausts yet for sale). 

I finally opened up both air scoops for the Upper Cowling ( Part B6 ) so the resin engine was more visible and I didn’t fit drop tanks as the 48th Sentai Ki.84’s had no need for them, being based near Tokyo.

 

one thing about the Model , you should be aware of , is the idiotic undercarriage attachment .

Firstly, whoever decided to attach the undercarriage with poly-bushes to the wing needs to go away and rethink their life, for the undercarriage legs WILL break.

 

I rmade sure that I replaced the poly-bushes in the build , and added metal pins to the undercarriage legs and used superglue to fix the undercarriage legs

be aware about the undercarriage union - for it is fundamental to the build and I can't see Hasegawa ever being able to resolve that without a new Mould Kit .

If you learn one thing about the 1/48 Ki.84 Hayate by Hasegawa - replace the poly-bushes - or suffer a broken undercarriage sooner rather than later !!

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Edited August 27, 2017 by 73north

[MikeR]

Great stuff!

 

Mike.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

 Great job on this model. 

[John Masters]

From the ground up...excellent job!

[Dazey]

FRANKly, that's a fantastic model. 

[russ c]

Great looking Frank there, very nice work

[73north]

Thank you very much   - the Aztek airbrush helped hugely

I knew I had to add to the basic model to make it really stand out ( there are some great kits built out there ) - so I spent ages looking for an aftermarket decal set that had a really nice camouflage scheme -

and the ' Vector ' resin engine was well worth the extra effort of making , along with the etch detailing

[WildeSau75]

Very nice build - looks top notch.

 

Cheers,

Michael