Ki-43-II Hayabusa in 1/72 by Alex Rodionov

 

Alex Rodionov has very kindly shared several examples of his very fine 1/72 scale models with AoJ, a  Ki-44 in 2022, B5N1 and D3A2 in 2021, and an A6M5 in 2019. It is a double delight to show  these images of his Ki-43-II model made from the Arma Hobby kit, the Hayabusa being a personal favourite and the CBI theatre of particular interest. 

Alex's model shows off the elegant lines of the Nakajima fighter beautifully and the scheme is striking. The aircraft flown by Captain Masao Miyamaru, 2nd Chutai leader in Hiko Dai 50 Sentai, based at that time in Burma and as depicted in Osprey Aircraft of the Aces # 85 Ki-43 'Oscar' Aces of World War 2 by Hiroshi Ichimura.

 

 

Alex used acrylic paints Gunze (GSI Creos) H60 IJA Green for the upper surface camouflage and mixed the brown from Tamiya XF-64 Red Brown and XF-72 Brown (JGSDF). The decals are from Rising Decals set 72036 'Emperor's Eagles Pt. III'.

 

 

This Sentai used an untypical Chutai colour sequence of red, yellow and white. The Kanji character on the rudder is Miyou or Tae 妙, which the Osprey book asserts as meaning 'exceptional skill' (which should be 妙技 - Miyougi) but it has been suggested that it was probably named for his wife Taeko 妙子 which is a popular girl's name, not only in pre-war days but also nowadays.  Taeko means a beautiful lady with a self-controlled mind but who has an inner steel. Model Art 395 states that the names  of wives were also applied to some 50th aircraft. The controversial Satoshi Anabuki applied Kimikaze to one of his aircraft, which was a play on words because it sounds like 'Imperial Wind (3rd Chutai Hayabusa were typically named after winds or words relating to climate) but the first character represented the diminutive 'Kimi' for his wife's name 'Kimiko'. The red fuselage band indicates that Miyamaru personally led the1st Shotai (flight) of the Chutai.

 

 

Masao Miyamaru was born in 1912 and graduated from the 50th NCO cadre of the Army Air Force at age 22, going on to attend the Army Air Academy and graduating from that in 1938. He served with Hiko Dai 50 Sentai in the Philippines campaign and in Burma flying the Ki-27, becoming the 2nd Chutai leader in February1942 and returning there in September 1942 with the unit after it had converted to the Ki-43 in Japan from April to June 1942.  His second tour flying in combat over Burma lasted a year and he returned to Japan in August 1943 to become an instructor at the Akeno Flying School. 

 

 

To reinforce the Philippines as part of the third phase of the Sho Operation No.1 Akeno was to provide two air regiments with Ki-84 Hayate fighters, to be attached to the 21st Air Brigade of the 4th Air Army. A composite unit of six Chutai was subsequently formed at Akeno in October 1944 as Hiko Dai 200 Sentai with 47 Ki-84 fighters and a core of flying instructors, Miyamaru joining the unit as a Chutai leader. The unit staged via Shanghai to the Philippines where it joined the composite 30th Fighter Group (with 16th and 22nd Air Brigades). During combat in the Philippines and despite being reinforced with 68 replacement aircraft the unit suffered badly with a total of 35 aircraft destroyed or heavily damaged on the ground, 22 destroyed in air combat or missing on operations and the loss of 30 pilots between 26 October and 23 November, an early casualty being Masao Miyamaru who was killed in action over Leyte on 29 October 1944.

With special thanks to Alex for sharing another gem of a model and special thanks also to Mr Keishiro Nagao of Lifelike Decals for his discussion of the character 妙. 

Image credit: All photos © 2026 Alexander Rodiniov.

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 

     

Two Aces by Michael Thurow

After an unfortunate six month interregnum for this blog  there is much catching up to do. And in that light it is a delight to be able to share this 'lost file' article by Michael Thurow which features, in beautifully created settings, the men as well as the machines of both sides which fought over China in the late 1930's.  Especially pleasing to remember an ace of the Chinese Nationalist Air Force. Over to Michael then:-

Two Biplane Aces of the Sino-Japanese War

 

The biplane, often fabric-covered and wire-rigged, was still the predominant fighter type in the arsenal of the combatants when the invasion by Imperial Japanese ground and air forces sparked off the second Sino-Japanese War in July 1937. Following my recent foray into biplane modelling I'm pleased to introduce two distinguished pilots and their combat planes. 

 

Lt Liu Che-sheng of the 21st Pursuit Squadron, 4th Pursuit Group of the Republic of China Air Force flew this Curtiss Hawk III on 14 August 1937 in a mission from Schien Chiao (former romanisation for Jianqiao, an area in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province) when he shared in the destruction of a Mitsubishi G3M 'Nell' bomber. Liu was a leading Chinese ace with 10 confirmed and two shared victories. He retired from the Republic of China (Taiwanese) Air Force as a Major General. 

 

 

 

The Curtiss Hawk III was a modified export version of the US Navy's BF2C-1 of which 102 units were procured by the National Chinese government in 1936. The fighter was powered by a Wright Cyclone 9-cylindre radial engine producing 745 hp and carried one 0.5 cal and one 0.3 cal Browning machine gun.

 

This Freedom Model Kits release in 1/48 scale was part of an entire series of Curtiss Hawk biplanes which I built during 2024. Although a nice kit in general I had to adjust a couple of errors and added some detail*. For the olive green camouflage I applied Revell SM 363 (Millman, AoJ, 2023).

Meanwhile on the other side of the frontline...

Lt Kōsuke Kawahara, son of a famous Japanese corps commander, arrived in China in July 1937 with this Kawasaki Ki-10. Leading his second element flight from the Kato Chutai of 2nd Daitai into an engagement with a large number of Chinese I-15 fighters on 25 March 1938 Kawahara had just scored his ninth victory when his aircraft was hit and the aspiring young pilot fell to his death. His conqueror was presumably Lt Wei Ting-shi of the 7th Pursuit Squadron, 3rd Pursuit Group. Kawahara was the first JAAF pilot to achieve 'ace' status.

The Ki-10 was based on the Kawasaki KDA series designed by Dornier's Dr. Richard Vogt (of later fame as Chief Engineer at Blohm & Voss). Vogt mentored Takeo Doi who was responsible for the development of the Ki-10 and later of the Ki-61 Hien. The Ki-10 used a Kawasaki Ha-9 12-cylindre V-engine, a derivative of the BMW VI, delivering 850 hp for take- off. It was armed with two 7.7 mm Type 89 machine guns.

The model is a Ki-10-I derived from Fine Molds 1/48 scale Ki-10-II kit. This earlier version is shorter, has a reduced wingspan (top and bottom) and a different rudder and elevator hinge line. The conversion itself was not too difficult*. For the JAAF # 1 Hairyokushoku (ash-green) I home mixed Mr Color H325 Gray with 15-20% H461 Oxide Green and a small measure of dark earth.

 

* I hope this brief juxtaposition serves as inspiration to build one or both of these neat biplanes. The respective build logs describing the conversion and other alterations may be requested via Nick.

Michael 

References

The Curtiss Hawks, Page Shamburger & Joe Christy, Kalamazoo, 1972

Curtiss Navy Hawks, Aircraft in Action #156, Peter Bowers, Carralton, 1995

Aces of the Republic of China, Osprey Aircraft of the Aces # 126, Oxford, 2015 

Curtiss Hawks, China and French Grey, www.aviationofjapan.com, 2016

http://surfcity.kund.dalnet.se/china_chi-sheng.htm  

Japanese Army Air Force Fighter Units and their Aces 1935-1945, I Hata, Y Izawa & C Shores, London, 2002

Kawasaki Ki-10 Perry, T Januszewski & Z Szeremeta, Tenzan 2.1, Wisnowa, 2007

On Closer Inspection, Kawasaki Ki-10 'Perry', Mike Goodwin, Arawasi International Extra 1, Tokyo, 2010

Correspondence with Ken Glass and Nick Millman, Aviation of Japan, April-May 2021 

 

With special thanks to Michael for sharing this article and the images of his beautifully realised and presented models.

 

Image credit: Box art header © 2023 Freedom Model Kits; All model photos © 2026 Michael Thurow 

 

Update on Airfix Ki-46

Added a link to the 28 July blog review of the re-released Airfix Ki-46 to a superb and meticulous upgrade build of the 2012 kit on You Tube here, showing the basic good lines of the model. Although your AoJ host doesn't know the builder personally he gets two nice mentions. 

Image credit: Box art © 2012  Hornby Hobbies Ltd.

Rob Ronconi's Nakajima Ko-4 Fighter in 1/72 Scale

Featuring another excellent JAAF biplane model, the Nakajima Ko-4 fighter beautifully crafted by Rob Ronconi from the challenging 1/72 scale, mixed media Azur kit of 2009. 

 

Following Japanese Army adoption of the Ko-3 fighter/trainer (a licence built Nieuport 24 C 1 originally designated Type Ni-24) which had replaced the Hei-1 (SPAD XIII) the Ko-4 fighter was manufactured under licence by Nakajima after examples of the Nieuport 29 C 1 were imported to Japan by the Army in 1923. A total of 608 were produced from 1923 to 1932 as the Army's first mass produced fighter, seeing service from 1925 to 1933. Although deployed during the Manchurian and Shanghai incidents from 1931 to 1932 there was no opportunity to test the design in air combat. And at that time replacement by the Nakajima Type 91 fighter had already begun.  

 

From 1925 the Ko-4 was operated alongside the Ko-3 by two Chutai in the 1st Hiko Rentai (Air Wing*) at Kasumigaura, three Chutai in the 3rd Hiko Rentai at Yokaichi, two Chutai in the 4th Hiko Rentai at Tachiarai and one Chutai in the 7th and 8th Hiko Rentai at Hamamatsu and Pingtung (Formosa) respectively. 

 

In service Army pilots were not enthused by the Ko-4, preferring instead the slower Ko-3 for its superior stability and manoeuvrability. The Ko-4 had a tendency to side slip and stall at pre-stall speeds and possessed a high landing speed. The twin-bay biplane had a wooden monocoque fuselage constructed with layers of hot-glued wooden strips wrapped in a spiral around a mould, strengthened by internal longerons and four plywood bulkheads, then covered with linen and doped with cellulose lacquer. The wings were of fabric covered wood. Powered by a 320 hp Mitsubishi licenced Hispano-Suiza, eight cylinder V-8 water cooled engine giving a maximum speed of 145 mph and a  cruising speed of 106 mph, cooling was provided by the two distinct Lamblin radiators fitted to the wheel struts.  The Ko-4 was armed with two 7.7mm synchronised machine guns.     

 

 

 

With special thanks to Rob for kindly sharing these images of his excellent model with Aviation of Japan and for his patience in waiting for them to be posted here! 

 

* Hiko Rentai is usually translated as 'Air Regiment' but to avoid confusion with the convention here of Hiko Sentai as air regiment this article uses the term 'Air Wing' as used in the seminal Pictorial History of Japanese Military Aviation by Eiichiro Sekigawa, translated and published by Ian Allan in 1974.    

 

Image credit: All model photos © 2026 Rob Ronconi; Box art © 2009 Azur-FRROM

Lifelike Decals New Website

Lifelike Decals have launched a new website and the link in the sidebar has been updated together with the QR code for access via smartphone. The old website will be closed in February but can no longer be used for contact or to place orders. Please use the new website.  

Image credit: Logo © 2026 Lifelike Decals