Quick: What Japanese fighter was best-known to the Japanese public during the war, and shot down more than half of the enemy aircraft credited to Japanese fighter pilots in the Pacific War?
If you answered "the Zero", you're wrong. The Ki.43 Hayabusa (Peregrine Falcon), known to Allied aircrews as "Oscar," was the best-known Japanese fighter during the war to the Japanese public. The Zero only took that position after the war when the Americans arrived, since they had considered that airplane more important, and had called every Japanese fighter with a low wing and a "bubble" canopy a "Zero" throughout the war. And yes, the pilots of Ki.43s, fighting in China, Burma, Malaya, New Guinea and the Philippines, did in fact shoot down more Allied aircraft than any other Japanese fighter. The Oscar was ubiquitous, and - according to Charles Older - a dangerous opponent in the hands of a good pilot even when the American was mounted in a P-51D, due to its outstanding maneuverability. A "good pilot" in a Ki.43 shot down Tommy McGuire, our #2 ace, and shot up the other three members of his flight, before getting away clean. Quite an accomplishment for an airplane that was barely "modern" at the outset of the war, due to the conservatism of JAAF pilots in what they wanted as an air superiority fighter.
In 1/48, Nichimo brought out a Ki.43-I back in the late 60s/early 70s as their f irst "in house" product, which was It for the Oscar up to the 1990s. Fortunately, it was a good kit and can still be turned into an acceptable model today. Then Fine Molds popped the Ki.43-II and Ki.43-III in the mid 1990s; these are good kits if you can find them, though they need some help in the cockpit. Hasegawa brought out their series of Oscars beginning with the Ki.43-I in 2001, quickly followed by the II and the III. In keeping with Hasegawa's philosophy of spinning off from a basic kit for different versions, the main airframe is the same throughout, with different wingtips (longer in span for the Ki.43-I, clipped for the later versions) and cowling and engine. The series harkens back to Hasegawa's transformation in 1980 when they acquired the design team from Mania - the Ki.43 is definitely a "Mania" kit as is the Ki.27, though simplified even more. There is no rivet detail as in the earlier model, and the cockpit is simple - not a problem since the opening's not that big that you can see more than a "suggestion" of the detail in there anyway.
I recently found one of the early releases up at the LHS estate sale for "an offer I could not refuse". It helped that a week earlier, when going through the catacombs down in the decal dungeon, I had run across two really excellent sheets for the Ki.43 from Lifelike Decals, that have some pretty spectacular markings for all three sub-types, most particularly in the realm of "colorful" with the Ki.43-I.
So, here starts basic assembly.
I don't like Hasegawa's "thing" about doing their Nakajima fighters with the butterfly combat flaps deployed, since they never were outside of actual flight, and it's not a simple case of sticking them in their flap wells. Like with the Ki.84, I cut out the flap wells from the lower wing, then fitted the flaps in the openings before proceeding further with the wing assembly. The wingtips need some careful test fitting before committing glue, to get them so they fit smoothly to the wing, The fact that the outer tip goes directly through the ailerons, and any resulting seam needs to be fixed in the fabric detailing, means that the better you can make the fit before gluing, the less trouble afterwards.
The simple cockpit is assembled with the inner sidewalls to each fuselage half before assembly, then once the fuselage is glued together, the floor, with the seat, control stick, rudder pedals and forward bulkhead including the gun butts and the instrument panel, is popped in.
With careful assembly of the wing to the fuselage, i only had to work on the area to the rear with the lower fuselage, which I putted to fill gaps and sanded smooth. I also filled the "cutout" area behind the cockpit for the canopy to be attached in the closed position, sanding it smooth since I will pose the canopy open. the two rows of cylinders for the engine and the face were painted before I took them off the sprue, assembled and with the exhausts glued to the forward fuselage, with the cowling popped over. The whole process probably took two hours in 20-30 minute breaks from writing over two days.
Painting is next and that is where the model will "come alive."
8 attached images. Click to enlarge.
