Hasegawa Ki-43 Hayabusa 隼 (Oscar)

 

Since about the late 1990’s Hasegawa has dominated the Japanese WW2 aircraft kit market.  They’ve hit just about every single engine Imperial Japanese Army and Navy aircraft that is worth mentioning.  Not only have they been extremely thorough in their coverage, the kits they’ve offered are top notch and a joy to build.
The Ki-43 Type 1 “Hayabusa” is no exception.  After several extensive scratch building projects, I’ve gone on a “stock box” kick.  This kit builds up wonderfully this way and doesn’t suffer from want of aftermarket detail sets.

It’s a simple kit with only 71 parts.  The molding is first rate with finely engraved panel lines and clean crisp detail.  There are optional drop tanks but these come sans the wing mounts and anti-sway arms and look a bit odd under the wings so I opted to leave them off.

The kit allows you to post the unique "butterfly" (or Fowler-type)maneuvering flaps in the open or closed position.  These flaps, which dramatically improved performance in tight turns, were unique to the Ki-43 and a very nice give the kit a very distinctive look.

The cockpit is excellent.  There is sufficient detail to construct a respectable “office” for the aircraft out of the box.  The Ki-43’s cockpit was fairly cramped though and when the fuselage halves are mated you can’t see too much.  The AMS devil on my shoulder kept trying to get me to add an Eduard photo etch instrument panel and he was right, it would have looked nice.  I did want to keep it stock box though so I kept it as is.

The kit comes with decals for two different aircraft.  I didn’t use either one, at least not in the way intended.  I liked the markings for Major Tateo Kato of the 64th Flight Regiment in Burma circa 1942 but decided to create stencils and paint the markings.

Maj. Kato in Burma, 1942

Click this link for a short video clip of Major Kato and Ki-43s from the wartime film:
加藤隼戦闘隊 (Kato Hayabusa Fighter Wing) with subtitles

 

 I made a photo copy of the decal sheet at 1:1 scale and set the contrast setting on the copier to high.  Across this sheet I placed yellow Frog brand painter's tape, which is essentially the same as Tamiya yellow tape.

After that it was a simple matter of using a sharp #11 to cut blade around the designs which easily showed through the translucent tape.  This gave me positive masks which I placed on the model after applying the desired color.

I painted and post shaded the base camouflage colors as normal.  When all was done I peeled back the Frog Tape mask to reveal a perfect marking that looked “painted on” because it was!

 

This kits fit together almost perfectly.  I needed very little putty to conceal seams.  The wings and stabilizers snapped to the correct uniform dihedral without any coaxing from me.  I did the underside with a lightened coat of Tamiya acrylics XF-14 Japanese Army Grey thinned with 70% isopropyl alcohol.  I post shaded this with the same mixture darkened with some XF-1 Flat Black and thinned with more alcohol.

 The kit fit together almost perfectly.  I needed very little putty to conceal seams.  The wings and stabilizers snapped to the correct uniform dihedral without any coaxing from me.

I did the underside with a lightened coat of Tamiya acrylics XF-14 Japanese Army Grey thinned with 70% isopropyl alcohol.  I post shaded this with the same mixture darkened with some XF-1 Flat Black and thinned with more alcohol.

This was a terrific kit to clear my head after months of agonizing scratch building.  Accurate, no-frills builds are always a pleasure and they are even nicer when there are no nasty surprises or glitches to test your patience.