Thanks Russ! Glad, you like it!
Some time has already passed since I finished the C6N1 Saiun, so time to start something japanese again. Though I have quite a few Hasegawa Zeros in my stash, I couldn’t resist Eduard, when they came out with some new Zero kits since 2022.
First new kit on my work bench will be the Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero Type 32 as the ProfiPack …
Let’s have a look at the spues. Sprue A comes with all the clear parts …
… Sprue D has various parts for cockpit and engine …
… Sprue H shows the fuselage and elevators …
… Sprue M holds the wing parts …
… Sprue V has parts for the landing gear and external fuel tank …
Doesn’t look like too many parts here. Furthermore the ProfiPack has as usual a mask and PE parts …
… and a closer look at the PE parts. I’ll see how many of them I really find usefull …
… the decals are made by Eduard again with the inevitable stencils. Everything looks well printed …
… as usual, the intructions are again a small booklet …
… though Eduard offers 5 interesting decal options for this kit …
… it was a quick decision for me when I saw them. I’ll go for the aircraft of Kenji Yanagiya …
Though he was an “average” Zero pilot, credited with 8 victories, he became famous because he was one of the 6 escort pilots of that disastrous Yamamoto flight (from the japanese view) on the 18. April 1943, being the only one of them to survive the war. He used this Zero on that day and shot down a P-38 during the fight.
In the last days I did a lot of thinking if I should make it a double build or not. Finally I decided yes, so here comes the other part. Though it’s another Zero it’s slightly different to the other build, but only slightly … It’s the Nakajima A6M2-N Ni-Shiki Suijo Sentoki, better known as “Rufe”. And it’s another ProfiPack …
Let’s again have a look at the sprues. Sprue A is the same as on the A6M3 …
… same with Sprue D …
… but that’s it with the similarities. The fuselage comes on Sprue G …
… the very different looking wings are on Sprue L …
… the carriage for the seaplane is on Sprue T …
… while the floats and some bombs are on the final Sprue U …
… here are masks and the PE-parts …
… another closer look at the PE-parts …
… again good printing quality of the decals …
… the booket with the intructions …
… Eduard offers again 5 options for this kit …
… and I probably go for this plane of the 802. Kokutai at the Shortland Islands 1943. Haven’t made my mind up about it but this bird looks nice. Hope I can achieve that kind of mottling …
Last year I bought the Vallejo paint set 71169 for the IJN colours. They should help me to achieve a nice result on both builds …
A bit difficult will become that kind of Grey or Beige on the underside of both planes. Eduard suggests a 50/50 mix of 2 Gunze paints, so does Vallejo with their paints. I’ll do some test spraying in the next days to see what the colours look like and make a decision. I’m not really a fan of mixing paints …
A bit of help might also be this old IJN Aces book from Osprey. It was already written when Yanagiya was still alive and well …
I’ll start with the builds soon and it would be great if some of you guys would again accompany me along the way.
Happy modelling!
Torsten