1/48 Tamiya Hyakushiki Shitei III Kai 

Air Defence Fighter

by Alan Williamson on Sept 26 2003

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History 

The Mitsubishi Hyakushiki Shitei was deemed to be one of the best Japanese aircraft. Developed as a high-altitude, high-speed reconnaissance aircraft, it proved to be quite successful throughout the Pacific war by the Japanese Army.  The Hyakushiki Shitei was then developed into a high-altitude interceptor to fight off the American B-29's which were conducting daylight raids over Japan.  So in June 1943, the Japanese Army Aeronautical Research Institute began studying the possibility of adapting the Hyakushiki Shitei, which at the time one of the few operational aircraft in the Japanese Army to have the required performance for this type of operation.  In May 1944, the project was approved and was urgently carried out. The Hyakushiki Shitei was fitted out with two 20mm machine guns on the nose and the forward fuselage fuel tanks were replaced. The nose canopy was modified to a “stepped” nose housing. The Hyakushiki Shitei’s with these modifications were known as the Hyakushiki Shitei III Kai Air Defence Fighter “Otsu” type.  Although in July 1944 the Japanese Army deiced to add a 37mm dorsal cannon to fire forward and upward at an angle of 70 degrease.  The aircraft with this addition were known as “Otsu + Hei” type.  Since reconnaissance pilots flew most of these aircraft with little dogfight experience, they made greater military gains against the American B-29s proving the outstanding basic capability of the Hyakushiki Shitei         

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The Kit No.56 

Tamiya have provided a relatively well constructed kit, although very basic to build. The exterior is well detailed with crisp panel lines. Tamiya have supplied the modeler with a, choice of three different squadrons to finish the kit in.

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Construction 

This model was built OOB with no added on parts. The kit went together without a hitch, no putty was required in the construction of this kit although when I constructed this kit back in 2001 I didn’t know anything about the putty range for model kits, or that there was such a thing as after market parts/resin for model kits. Not until my first Model Expo. Because the cockpit on this kit could do with some after market parts, it’s very basic. That’s why I ended up sticking the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit just to fill up some space. Although the fuselage, wings and Ha-112-II engines are nicely detailed, the canopies however seem to be a little to big for the fuselage as they seem to over hang when placed on, so a little squeeze when gluing them to the fuselage helped in getting them to sit in the right position. 

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Paint and finish 

This was the first kit that I had ever painted using an airbrush; I didn’t even have the airbrush compressor (I brought that mid last year). Before I got the compressor, I started using the aerosol packs, but that turned out to be too expensive, then I went to using old car tires for a sauce of air, but got fed up with them running out of air half way though painting not only that I smashed my car pumping the darn things up at the garage. So in November 2002 I brought the airbrush compressor and have never looked back, best darn investment ever. Anyhow, I guess I've strayed off the track so back to the Paint and Finish, I think I used an aerosol can to propel my airbrush at the time of this kit using Humbrol paints.  The top of the aircraft was painted using Humbrol matt 29 and the belly was.....well......I can’t remember the number, but it was a light gray. This was also the first attempt at doing smokey soot around the cowling, which I sprayed on with the airbrush. I used a gloss black as well as some gloss white to get some sort of a sooty burnt exhaust affect. I thought all an all it turned out quite good for a first attempt, I now prefer to do the sooty burnt exhaust stains with pastel these days, and I think that it gives a better affect. Out of the range of decals that Tamiya supplied, I chose to do the Hyakushiki Shitei III from the 17th Dokuritsu Hikotai. 

Alan

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Photos and text © by Alan Williamson