Kawasaki Ki-100 Goshikisen 1/48

Bonjour a toutes!

After building a colorful Fw 190 of JG 54, I thought it's time again for another japanese fighter. The Hasegawa kit is a limited edition from last year and I fancied this quite colorful version. Well, colorful for japanese aircrafts ....
Though the kit has already become of age, it's quite a good one and gives you not much trouble. There are only 2 parts, that won't fit the way they should. One is the canopy, which comes as one piece. On the photos you can see a small gap to the frame. For me, it's okay. The other part which gave me some trouble to fit is the gun mount on the cowling. But I think I fixed it quite well. Of course the model is build out of the box with no extras, except the 20 mm canons in the wings, which are not included in the kit. I made them of sprues, drilled a hole in it and cut it to size.

The colors are again a mixture of different brands of acrylic paints. I used Revell for Silver on the lower surface and Brown for the interior, IJA Green comes from Tamiya. All other colors are from Agama, like Red Brown for the propeller, IJA Grey for the external fuel tanks and RLM 04 Yellow (!!!) for the yellow stripes on the wings. That fits perfectly!
The decals look a bit strange on the paper but in warm water they are very easy to handle and fit very good to surface of the model. The many blue stripes on the rear fuselage are a bit tricky, but it works if you take your time ....

I decided to build the aircraft of the legendary Major Yohei Hinoki, which he used in summer 1945, when he was an intructor at the Akeno Fighter School. The "japanese Douglas Bader" also had to fly home defense missions against incoming bomber raids and with this very aircraft he shot down his 12. and last opponent, a P-51 D, over Nagoya on 16. July 1945. He began his career along Major Tateo Kato with the 64. Sentai in Burma. He was also the first japanese pilot to shoot down a P-51 Mustang (with a Ki-43), beside Lightnings, Hurricanes and even B-24 Liberators. The "Master Falcon" and respected gentleman by the enemy died in 1991.

The Ki-100 was one of the best fighter planes, produced in Japan during WW 2. Because the Akashi engine factory was destroyed by a bomber raid, there were no more Ha-140 inline engines left for the already built Ki-61 frames. So Kawasaki decided to use the Mitsubishi Ha-112 air cooled 14 cylinder double wasp engine with 1500 hp. To do so, the cowling had to be widen. The aircraft was named Kawasaki Ki-100 I Type 5. The first tests flights were so successful, that Kawaski decided to build more of these aircrafts. About 270 Ki-100 had the "Razorback" fuselage of the Ki-61 and the rest had the "Bubbletop" canopy as you can see it here. It is believed, that about 390 Goshikisen still left the assembly lines until wars end. Only one Ki-100 has survived the war and can be seen now in England at the RAF Museum.

Happy modelling!
Black Widow

wonderful pictures you show us there!
your Ki is very nice, too clean to my taste, but your painting is fabulous as well as the assembly!
well done for this model and thank you for sharing it with us!!

A+
Alex

Nice Ki-100 with a nice painting