Hayate in 1/72 Scale by Richard Winston

Richard Winston bought the 1/72 scale Hasegawa 1987 re-release of their original 1982 Ki-84 Hayate kit for $3 at a model club auction. Noting the kit as quite simple with not much of a cockpit but quite small under the single piece canopy he built it as an experiment to try an old bottle of Hawkeye Talon acrylic NMF paint.

He first sprayed a  base coat of Tamiya gloss black and after that dried sprayed the Hawkeye aluminium, finishing off with Vallejo Metal Color Dark Aluminium to break up the monochrome finish.  Other paints used were Aeromaster acrylic Nakajima Grey Green and ID Yellow, Tamiya flat black, gloss red and flat green for the prop (instead of the 'correct' Gunze (GSI Creos) H-319) with metallic blue for the wheel wells.  

The kit decals were past their sell-by date and without a suitable mask to paint the Hinomaru Richard used Tech Mod decals, choosing a simple scheme for a Ki-84 Ko flown by WO Kenji Fujimoto of Hiko Dai 246 Sentai based at Taisho airfield, Osaka, Japan in 1945 as depicted in Japanese Army Air Force Aces 1937-45, Osprey Aircraft of the Aces  # 13 by Henry Sakaida. Fujimoto claimed three B-29s, surviving two ramming attacks, before being shot down and killed in an engagement with P-47s on 14 August 1945.

Richard has crafted a very attractive model demonstrating that less is often more and which he recommends as a palate cleanser (which I wholeheartedly endorse in this age of often over engineered, expensive kits with interior detail that will never be seen!). Hasegawa's neat and undemanding 1/72 Hayate is due to be re-released this November with a retail price of £3.75 direct from HLJ (enabling a purchase of six for the price of a more recent and superlative 1/72 offering). 

With special thanks to Richard for sharing these images and details and to Mark Smith for facilitating correspondence.

Image credit: All model photos © 2026 Richard Winston