Hasegawa 1:48 Nakajima Ki.43-ll Hayabusa (Oscar) Kit #JT-82

December 19, 2023 · in Aviation · 1/48 Hasegawa Ki-43 Oscar · 26 ≡ · 289

The last of four on the Rising Decals, "Dying Sun Pt.III. The story of XJ005...

During late April 1944, this Ki-43-II 'Oscar' was captured by the US Army in the Hollandia area at one of the four dromes: The Hollandia airfield, the Sentani runway or the Cyclops runway west of Hollandia, or the Tami runway east of Hollandia. Afterwards, having been inspected by the Air Technical Intelligence Unit (TAIU-SWPA), it got assigned the tail code XJ005.
Between June and September 1944 this aircraft then got repaired by American personnel from the 5th Air Force, 317th Troop Carrier Group, 41st Troop Carrier Squadron, during their free time. During the restoration the aircraft got paint-stripped to a bare aluminum finish. On the fuselage and wings it got the US star-and-bar markings. On both sides of the nose, below the cockpit and running to the engine cowl, was a lightning-like stripe with "Rebuilt by the 41st Troop Carrier Sq." written in cursive,[2] with the squadron's motif of Felix the Cat carrying a kitten. The tail code XJ005 was painted in black on both sides of the tail. The tail rudder was painted with pre-war-like red and white stripes. Both main wheel hubs of the landing carriage had the 5th Air Force emblem. On the 16th of November 1944, when the 41st Troop Carrier Squadron moved northwards, this Oscar was left behind at Hollandia Airfield.
Sometime after the departure of the 41st Troop Carrier Squadron, XJ005 suffered a landing gear collapse or made a belly landing, thereby damaging the aircraft. Afterwards, it was towed to a aircraft boneyard area and abandoned there. It thus was never sent to Brisbane, Australia to be restored to airworthiness and being test flown there.

It's a Hasegawa kit, nuff said. I picked up an S.B.S Model resin set for dirt cheap but it isn't really needed. I started this build in 2017. I cut out the relevant parts to install the S.B.S. rear deck and when I went to check this against the fit of the canopy I couldn't find it or any of the clear parts. I emailed Hasegawa; yes they had the clear parts but yikes! the shipping costs so there it sat. Fast forward 436 days. I was building a George and while going through the parts I saw the decal sheet for this "Oscar" and under that was the clear parts.Aside from the grinding of the resin innards to fit, there were no issues. I can't remember the Tamiya paint I used for the innards but it was a close match to Yellowish olive green, # 29 for mid-production to late-production examples. I sprayed Vallejo Model Air 77.717 Dull Aluminum on the air frame and Tamiya Olive Drab for the anti-glare panel. A couple of errors with the Rising Decals. Even though they used pictures of the aircraft as their reference, they didn't make the front of the flash pointy so I did that with semi-gloss black. At the back they wanted you to paint the rudder white down to a panel line but the decal was to short so I had to touch up with aluminum. The decal stripes were 3mm too long so these were cut back. All in all, a nice building experience.

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