Mitsubishi Dinah ++Finished++

[John]

Yeah, why not? 😱

 

 

Another kit I have clear memories of, up there on the Woolworths Wall of Kits, with the Corsairs strafing the airfield while a flight of Dinahs do their best to get away through the bullets and bombs. That and the cool tiger on the tail.  What wasn't to like for the 10-year-old or thereabouts me.

 

 

I think this was the first Japanese aircraft I ever built. I know I had an Airfix Zero, but it was painted. I also had a Revell Tony and Frank but they were painted too - not necessarily in appropriate colours. I know the Dinah wasn't painted so likely it was earlier. It was also moulded in light grey, so it didn't need much paint to look like the one on the box, except I think I eventually painted the spinners yellow.

 

It's a very cool design, and I've revisited it a few times via the LS kits, of which I think I've built 3 out of 4 but this is the first time in over 50 years that I've gone back to the Airfix kit.

 

Should be interesting.

 

John

 

 

 

[modelling minion]

There is just no stopping you is there John. And I for one wouldn't want to as you keep building some real classics, a lot of which I have never built myself and the Dinah is another one of those. 

It's a great looking aircraft and the box art is fantastic so I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do with this one. 

[PeterB]

Hi John,

 

Needs a little work but builds up into a very attractive plane - Francillon in his Putnam's book says the Americans knicknamed it "The aircraft with the nice 'Linah'", though that would perhaps most accurately apply to the sleek Ki-46-III. Speaking of which I built 2 of these over the years, the first just after it was released with the tiger markings, which I seem to remember refers to a proverb about a tiger being able to run 1000 miles in one night or some such. My second one had accurate but altered markings including the Imperial Chrysanthemum crest over a river from the 16th Dokuritsu Chutai I believe, but I did rather like the tiger so when I gave up waiting for a III to be released (missed the LS one)  and converted a third Airfix kit, I made up a tiger for its tail as from the 18th Dokuritsu Chutai. The red "S" sort of marking on the box art could apparently either be the 76th Dokuritsu Chutai or perhaps the 2nd Chutai of the 10th Sentai according to one of my references - I believe it depends on the date! Can't recall what Airfix said the kit markings represented?

As you can see the Falcon canopy was not designed for the Airfix kit so it is not a brilliant fit in spite of filler - I would probably do it better now. Still it captures the shape fairly well - early style exhausts as I could not be bothered to do the multiple ejector stacks of the later production versions!

 

I seem to remember that Airfix's later (2013) boxing offered a plane in green over grey and another in all over grey. There are a number of possibilities for the grey ranging from a light grey to the grey green I have used, and also a couple of shades of brown - I have gone for the darker reddish one with my Ki-46-III as you can see, Some (very few) may also have had a brown and green stripe pattern sort of RAF style - possibly in China. Entirely your choice of course!

 

Good luck with the build.

 

Pete

Edited July 16, 2020 by PeterB

[John]

Well this is a pain in the posterior.

 

Although my Dinah is still in a sealed bag, it doesn't have a clear sprue. 

 

I'll have a rake in the stash for something else.

 

John

[PeterB]

Hi John,

 

That is indeed a pain! When I did my conversion I had to widen the fuselage with a sliver of card, so I had to replace the bottom camera windows with clear plastic card - easy enough. The side windows and landing light in the nose can be done with Krystal Kleer or equivalent, and I have 2 spare Falcon vac form canopies for the Ki-46-II and ditto Ki-46-III Kai (fighter) if you are interested - I tried to reprofile the Ki-46-III canopy and the water was too warm so it just collapsed, meaning I had to buy another set! Both are designed for the L&S kit so they are slightly wide (hence the attempt to narrow the canopy and the resultant widening of the fuselage) , but they are yours if you want them.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[modelling minion]

Really sorry to hear that John, not a lot you can do about missing the entire glazing sprue.

I'm sure that you will find something else just as interesting in your stash.

[John]

9 hours ago, PeterB said:

Hi John,

 

That is indeed a pain! When I did my conversion I had to widen the fuselage with a sliver of card, so I had to replace the bottom camera windows with clear plastic card - easy enough. The side windows and landing light in the nose can be done with Krystal Kleer or equivalent, and I have 2 spare Falcon vac form canopies for the Ki-46-II and ditto Ki-46-III Kai (fighter) if you are interested - I tried to reprofile the Ki-46-III canopy and the water was too warm so it just collapsed, meaning I had to buy another set! Both are designed for the L&S kit so they are slightly wide (hence the attempt to narrow the canopy and the resultant widening of the fuselage) , but they are yours if you want them.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

That's very generous, thank you. However Ventora3300 has located a spare Airfix clear sprue, which he has kindly offered, so we're back on.

 

Thanks to all for the offers and kind comments.

 

John

[John]

12 hours ago, PeterB said:

Hi John,

 

Needs a little work but builds up into a very attractive plane - Francillon in his Putnam's book says the Americans knicknamed it "The aircraft with the nice 'Linah'", though that would perhaps most accurately apply to the sleek Ki-46-III. Speaking of which I built 2 of these over the years, the first just after it was released with the tiger markings, which I seem to remember refers to a proverb about a tiger being able to run 1000 miles in one night or some such. My second one had accurate but altered markings including the Imperial Chrysanthemum crest over a river from the 16th Dokuritsu Chutai I believe, but I did rather like the tiger so when I gave up waiting for a III to be released (missed the LS one)  and converted a third Airfix kit, I made up a tiger for its tail as from the 18th Dokuritsu Chutai. The red "S" sort of marking on the box art could apparently either be the 76th Dokuritsu Chutai or perhaps the 2nd Chutai of the 10th Sentai according to one of my references - I believe it depends on the date! Can't recall what Airfix said the kit markings represented?

As you can see the Falcon canopy was not designed for the Airfix kit so it is not a brilliant fit in spite of filler - I would probably do it better now. Still it captures the shape fairly well - early style exhausts as I could not be bothered to do the multiple ejector stacks of the later production versions!

 

I seem to remember that Airfix's later (2013) boxing offered a plane in green over grey and another in all over grey. There are a number of possibilities for the grey ranging from a light grey to the grey green I have used, and also a couple of shades of brown - I have gone for the darker reddish one with my Ki-46-III as you can see, Some (very few) may also have had a brown and green stripe pattern sort of RAF style - possibly in China. Entirely your choice of course!

 

Good luck with the build.

 

Pete

 

These are very nice indeed. I wouldn't have known the -III was an Airfix conversion - I thought it was the LS/Arii kit.

 

John

[modelling minion]

3 hours ago, John said:

That's very generous, thank you. However Ventora3300 has located a spare Airfix clear sprue, which he has kindly offered, so we're back on.

 

Thanks to all for the offers and kind comments.

 

John

That is excellent news and once again shows why this forum is such a great one.

[John]

Thanks to Ventora3300's generous offer of the missing clear sprue, we can get on and take a serious look at this classic kit.

 

There's quite an impressive lever of interior detail for an Airfix kit of this era (1965) with a full-length floor, bulkheads and seats:

 

 

There are also a couple of "high altitude" crew members, who more usually turned up in the big bombers.

 

The bottom of the floor has has a couple of representative cameras moulded in, which is neat:

 

 

There are a couple of moulding flaws on the sides of the cowlings, but nothing serious:

 

 

Nick Millman has an excellent article on Dinah colours on his Aviation of Japan blog:

 

http://www.aviationofjapan.com/2010/04/ki-46-colours.html

 

John

 

 

 

 

 

[PeterB]

Hi John,

 

Yes, Japanese colours are quite a minefield, but at the end of the day just go with what looks right to you. I suspect the first one I built was either unpainted grey plastic or some sort of grey paint. The second one was painted initially in Sky from the Humbrol Authentic range, but when it was converted to a Ki 46-III I used German tank camo red/brown Hu 160 - another different option being the brown from the Humbrol Authentic Japanese set which is said to be realistic for early machines in China but is no longer produced. The third is in either Tamiya or Mr Hobby JAAF grey/green - Tamiya I suspect. 

 

According to various articles I have read, some Japanese paint finishes seemed to be prone to rapid fading (the early grey on Zeros looked almost white according to some sources) and later in the war were usually not very well applied so often peeled badly - very noticeably with the IJN green colour. If you were thinking of a green over grey finish, it seems JAAF green ranged from dark but perhaps not as blue/black as IJN green, to various shades of olive - in some cases fading towards light olive drab.

 

Of course, authors vary but Nick is usually right, and I believe he co-operated with Jamie for the Sovereign Colourcoats Japanese range..

 

Good luck with the build.

 

Pete

Edited July 30, 2020 by PeterB

[Jinxman]

Good to see this one back on the go.

[modelling minion]

Yes very good to see this one back on the bench John.

[John]

Actually 1966, if you believe the kit:

 

 

The insides get a coat of Humbrol 79 Blue Grey:

 

 

The crew suffer from the traditional Airfix cannon shell to the gut, so they've had a touch of filler:

 

 

...as did a couple of minor sink marks over the locating pin in the wing:

 

 

John 

[John]

A-ha - you can go to the ball Cinders:

 

 

😃

 

John

[John]

A big thanks once again to Ventora3300 for very kindly sending the transparent sprue for this kit. The build is now proceeding nicely:

 

 

The fit is very nice. I've used a couple of touches of my usual Games Workshop Liquid Green Stuff filler to smooth out some of the fuselage joins, but that's mostly cosmetic. For the sink marks over the wings, shown in the post above, I used the current Humbrol Model Filler, which is really excellent.  

 

I never really liked the Airfix "high altitude" crew figures but they look OK for well wrapped up Japanese Army aircrew:

 

 

I feel the need to go and watch an episode of the X-Files  👽

 

John

 

[Ventora3300]

This is developing into a lovely build, John. Delighted to be able to help (these kits need to be built y’know!) I never knew this aircraft even existed until having a mad run on picking up ‘Red Stripe’ Airfix kits a few years ago. Good luck (you still need to find a fix for missing window part no. 13).

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On 7/30/2020 at 2:30 PM, PeterB said:

Of course, authors vary but Nick is usually right, and I believe he co-operated with Jamie for the Sovereign Colourcoats Japanese range..

 

Good luck with the build.

 

Pete

 

Hi Pete,

 

Your believe is correct. Nick was a huge help to me in sorting out our Japanese aircraft range. As a matter of fact our US Equivalent Sky came from Nick too.

[modelling minion]

That has gone together very quickly John.

It is a very nicely shaped aircraft and Airfix seem to have captured it's look quite well.

[John]

A couple of coats of Humbrol 23 to serve a a primer:

 

 

 

John

 

[John]

Next problem - the protective sheet is stuck to the decals 😱

 

 

John

[Jinxman]

OMG! I have had this before, and cut round each decal and used it anyway - they went on ok and needed a slight rubbing over afterwards with a very fine bit of polishing pad - about 2400 grit from memory - good luck!

 

[modelling minion]

If you have a compass cutter you can cut some masks, especially for the red dots.

[PeterB]

Hi John,

 

That's a bummer. 

 

I have several sheets of Hinomaro in my stock and probably a left over tail marking from the one I built a couple of years back - I will check. If you are interested I will need to know the diameter of the Hino's. Problem is I used a lot on my 2 Dinahs so I might not have the right size plain ones, but could be OK for those with white outer rings.

 

Later - found the tail markings - looks like they are a slightly updated vesion of the one for the 1st Chutai, 81st Hiko Sentail that I think are the ones hiding at the right of your sheet under the folded over protective sheet. They seem to be in good condition. There are also two fuselage and two wing Hinomaru with white outlines that are slightly out of register if you look very closely. I definitely have Techmod replacements for all 6 although the red is slightly darker.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited August 4, 2020 by PeterB

[John]

16 hours ago, PeterB said:

Hi John,

 

That's a bummer. 

 

I have several sheets of Hinomaro in my stock and probably a left over tail marking from the one I built a couple of years back - I will check. If you are interested I will need to know the diameter of the Hino's. Problem is I used a lot on my 2 Dinahs so I might not have the right size plain ones, but could be OK for those with white outer rings.

 

Later - found the tail markings - looks like they are a slightly updated vesion of the one for the 1st Chutai, 81st Hiko Sentail that I think are the ones hiding at the right of your sheet under the folded over protective sheet. They seem to be in good condition. There are also two fuselage and two wing Hinomaru with white outlines that are slightly out of register if you look very closely. I definitely have Techmod replacements for all 6 although the red is slightly darker.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Thanks for your very kind offer. I'm optimistic that I can rescue the sheet but if not I should have enough spare markings to finish the build. Fingers crossed.

 

John