1/32 Ki-61 Hien

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Hi Guys,

I have been working on building the Hasegawa Ki-61 Hien and thought I would share my work here in case you haven't seen my build which is posted on another site.

Here's the kit:

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I considered a number of a/c to do but settled on doing Major Teruhiko Kobayashi's Ki-61 from the 244th Sentai. This is the same plane on the box cover and had serial number 3295. Kobayashi used this a/c to ram a B-29 on January 27th, 1945 which resulted in the loss of the aircraft but caused the downing of the B-29. Kobayashi survived the incident. For this act of bravery he was awarded the Bukosho, the equivalent to the Victoria cross or Medal of Honor. At the time Kobayashi was the youngest Sentai leader in IJAAF.

The young and disciplined Leader of the 244th Sentai in front of one of his Ki-61's.

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As the leader of the 244th Sentai Kobayashi flew a number of Ki-61's' including the the Hei, Tei, and Ki-100.
Here's a graphic of 3295.

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There are not many photos of 3295 but here are some shots of the actual aircraft. Note the 12.7mm nose MG's in the second shot. These were apparently removed just before his ramming mission to lighten the aircraft. Indeed many 244 Sentai Ki-61's either had their Cannon (if so equipped) or their MG's removed to lighten the aircraft's weight in order for them to be able to reach the altitude the B-29's were flying at. Some however, had well performing engines and were able to keep both the MG's and Cannon armament.



View of 3295 with Nose MG's in place.

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Cockpit work. I don't have any pics of the pre-painted build but here are some shots of the left and right side of the cockpit. I scratch built the storage bag on the right side with apoxie sculpt and the oxygen regulator from apoxie sculpt and styrene. I first formed the bag and when satisfied I then made the flap for the bag and laid it over top. So it is actually two pieces. The oxygen hose was dipped in Mr. Surfacer 500 and wiped down to fill in some of the gaps in the winding as I wanted it to look more like a hose than a spring. I am also using the Eduard PE set for the Hasegawa kit. Lead wire in various thicknesses was used for the wiring.

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For the right side. I cut off the levers on the hydraulic panel on the lower left side and re-positioned them a bit more accurately. For instance the right most lever was for the landing gear and of course this should be in the lowered position since the landing gear is down. I used the suggested Mr. Color RLM 79 for the cockpit colour.

[bullardino]

Really interesting build, I'm following along

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Thanks guys, much appreciated.

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Here's the work on the floor and seat back/armour plate. All areas are based pained. I used a number of references to get the colours correct.

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I continued to work on the floor and cockpit seat. I painted the seat back and added some chipping to the seat and floor. I then added the seat belt and shoulder harness,seat handles on both sides then gave all areas a general wash.

Cheers,
Dave.

[deafpanzer]

SUPERB work on the interior! I like it very much already...

[JimD]

Wow. That's some stunning work. I really like the depth your achieved with the shading on the paint. Everything is perfect.

Don't see many Japanese subjects built on the forums for some reason...good to see. Can't wait for more.

[wbill76]

Very nice work on that pit, looking forward to more on this one!

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Deafpanzer, Jimmy, Bill,

Thanks for having a look at the build and posting your comments. Much appreciated.

[Deleted]

Awesome detail! Looks like a very fast plane, for it's time.

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Bruce, Dicky,

Thanks Gents. Glad you like it.

Dave.

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Gents,

Here's a shot of the Firewall, instrument panel, rudder pedals, and 12.7mm MG's. The rudder pedals are from the Eduard PE set and the instruments are from MDC's individual Japanese instruments decal set.

[fightnjoe]

very sharp work. very nice.




joe

[bullardino]

Another truly nice progress Totalize.

[destrozas.]

partner who is good work that you carry.

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Here are some pics of the cockpit before I close it up. Interior colours are RLM79 Sand Yellow from Mr. Color.The blue oxygen regulator was scratch built as was the cockpit storage bag. I used apoxie sculpt for both but also used styrene disks punched with
my punch and die set. The bolt on the face of the oxygen regulator is from Masterclub.

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I got the fuselage together and did some sanding on the seams whiich are mostly done. I also rescribed some of the panel lines on the top of the fuselage behind the cockpit. I also put together the Master Ho-103 12.7mm Brass MG's. They are not glued in place as yet on the engine cowling as I still have to nail down their positioning i.e. They were in a staggered position.

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Here are some shots of the latest progress.

Here's the completed the Fuel Pressure Regulator. I also added the Quickboost exhausts, horizontal stabs, the supercharger intake and the Venturi tube along with the electrical wiring for it.

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Wings are on and gaps have been filled. Next up will be to put some primer on her. As you can see I broke off part of Venturi tube while handling it and had a near panic episode. I am sure you guys can imagine my horror as there I was working away on the kit, getting the wings done etc and suddenly I look down and part of the tube is missing. Of course i didn't even know I knocked it off and so I was like great now what the hell am I going to do. Scratch build another. Not easy to do with the way the tube is done. So I set off hunting around the the bench and floor for it. Looked for about half an hour then suddenly I spotted something out of the corner of my eye and there it was underneath the bench. I happily scooped it up and put it aside as I won't be attaching it now until the end of the build.

One thing I like about the wings is the dihedral. The nice upward angle of the wings I think looks cool.

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All primed up now and ready for some sanding and correction of any minor issues.

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So, I started work on the landing gear and added some scratch built details. You will notice that the brake lines run down the aft portion of the landing gear strut. A number of Hien photos often show them running down the front of the strut. However, using my excellent Hien fighter book as a reference I saw that the brake lines were positioned both ways. As there are no landing gear references for the particular Hien I am doing (3295) I decided to have them run aft.

The brake lines are lead wire. the break line strapping is lead foil.
The tow lugs are taken from a 1/35 scale German armour U-clamp.
Drilled out the holes in the upper and lower torque links using a few different sizes of drills with my pin vise.
The brake line fittings are again taken from a 1/35 german panther and are the from the drivers hatch locking mechanism. These were often brass fittings but I might just paint them the same silver colour as the landing gear. Not sure at this point.
Landing gear covers have been primed.

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I got the gear now more or less done. For the main struts I noticed in some of my references that they were not a silver or dull silver only. The upper struts were a darker metallic colour. I decided to model this using Humbrol dark silver metalizer. I originally bought this and the black metalizer colours to do the barrels on my German 4 barrel Flakvierling. As you may know they dry with a flat look then you buff it to a shine. I must say I like the look.

Here are some pics to give you an idea.

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Here are some progress pics of the gunsight. It was done with Eduard PE and bits from the actual kit.

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This Hien is starting to come together. I made some good progress over the last few days getting the natural metal base paint on and painting the tail. For the base paint I decided on Tamiya's natural metal airframe. This paint comes in a rattle can(which I decanted into my airbrush) and having seen its results on some other models I really liked the look of it. It has a fairly high brightness factor but has a matt look to it which I think represents a somewhat worn natural metal airframe. The other paint I had in my possession, Alclad airframe aluminum ( which I originally purchased to do my tamiya mustang) I found was much brighter and more glossy which was not the look I was going for with this model. I did use some Alclad II airframe aluminum for highlighting but I mixed it with Alclad dull aluminum to what else, dull it down. I used this mixture to do the highlights on the airframe and this can be seen on on the upper wing gun/ammo covers, wing tips, underside panels near the intake and also on the MG shell ejector panels. I also sprayed Alclad A/F aluminum, unmixed on the windscreen and canopy as I wanted these areas to be shiny to show that they might get this way as a result of the ground crew constantly cleaning the windscreen and canopy. The contrast might not show up in the end but hey I thought I would give it a shot. I had no problems with paint lift when taping off the highlighted areas. I did however de-tack the tamiya masking tape I used just to be sure I didn't have any problems. I could have done some more highlighting but felt that the Kawasaki green camo paint I will be using over the bare airframe will cover up most of these contrasted areas. I still have to do some touch ups on the I.D. panels and tail but I am pretty happy with the results.

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Some more progress.

I got the left wing painted up. I used a mask for this job. Paint was Mr. Color Kawasaki green. I am also going to use a mask for the hinomarus as well.

Cheers,
Dave.