The one I will be building is the 1/48 Hasegawa kit (no. 07333) and I want to try the scheme of Carrier Hiyo Fighter Squadron April 1943.

A splendid option indeed, my friend @johnb! Wow, what an amazing camo! It is yet another wonderful entry to our friend's @lgardner so successful and inspirative Empire of Japan GB!

Thanks for writing such a nice intro for our combo build! I feel honored to build with you.

My so far progress can be found at my now previous thread:

https://imodeler.com/groups/the-empire-of-japan-1919-1946/forum/topic/saburo-sakais-1-48-hasegawa-a6m2a-zero/?topic_page=1&num=15

Next posting will be from here, and I am already excited!

This is Saburo Sakai's Zero current situation:

-Cockpit painted and installed,seat holes drilled out as per reality

-Fuselage assembled, wings and tail planes added

-Elevators separated from the horizontal stabilizers, "to breathe some more life..."

-Engine assembled, cowling innards painted aotake.

-Drop tank assembled

-Some panel lines at upper/lower wings and the cowling are filled per Hasegawa instructions (probably they are not correct for my version).

Here she is:

Some friends here have already offered a lot of invaluable advice with great links: big thanks and for sure their advice will be put to good use in rendering my Sakai replica. I just love to learn all these little details and embody them in to my build.

Thanks for stopping by!

Unboxing a kit is always a great moment, and for this kit is not different.
Ofcourse this box is the same as the one from Spiros, except for a different decal sheet.
Three grey colored sprues,

and one transparant sprue,

Nice detailed decals and stencils.
I also ordered masks for the canopy which will be very handy.

To pick up the pace I started by seperating the required parts for the cockpit
Every part is very nicely detailed so it should turn into a nice interior.

The detailed instrument panel will be decorated with various decals.
Never saw this amount of decals used for a single IP but they look great.

After cleaning up the parts I put them all together for the first paint session.

And this is how the cockpit parts look after applying Mitsubishi cockpit green.

Thanks for watching,

2 additional images. Click to enlarge.

Yes! Just saw the add at another forum, the timing for the launch couldn’t be more appropriate either. Perhaps an F4-F will eventually come along also.

John, @johnb
Thank you for starting this journal. I have never seen an illustration of an A6M from the Hiyo, with the tail markings 2-1-128, dated April 1943. If you don't mind, I'm going to save the image for a future build.

Even though these Hasegawa Zero's are getting older, (like me 😉 ), they still build into a very nice looking model. However, I am very excited about hearing that Eduard is releasing an entirely new tool Zero, and how they will include many versions. This is fantastic news... I can see myself getting a few of them !

I have several of these Hasegawa Zero's under construction in my typical "Iron Werke" style, but they have been placed on hold until I finish up the F-84E Korean War tribute build. I have plans to build one of these Zero's up as one of Saburo Sakai's mounts, and another as AI-154 which crashed at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

I am looking forward to seeing your next installment.

Thanks again for starting this build... 🙂

What a great, quality progress, my friend @johnb!
Cockpit elements look superb, utterly realistic!
The individual instrument decals are looking nice and cockpit weathering rocks!
Looking forward to your next steps!