1/48 Ki-61ii (Hien) with teardrop canopy – WIP #1

So many wonderful aircrafts in the world and so many wonderful aircraft models as well, but I still wanna build the one that I wanna see, and that I have never seen before. ..

So it’s the time to go to the next one.Ki-61ii (Hien) -Kai with teardrop canopy, as mentioned before.

As well known, Ki-61ii was planned and produced as the superior follower of Type1. But cause of the late providing of Ha-140 engine(improved DB601), the producing of Type2 had been stopped.
So the Japan Army decided to cut off the nose of Type2s and to mount Air-cooling-engine on them for remaking them as Ki-100.

Only 99 numbers of Type 2, those had not been remade to Ki-100, was produced and sent to battlefields. The plane had two types, with Fast-back canopy and Teardrop canopy.

Here is one of the few pics of the Ki-61ii with teardrop canopy.

We can’t necessarily evaluate her as a high performance plane, but just beautiful, so I decided to build this type.

In the historical fact, they made Ki-100 from Ki-61, but I have to build Ki-61 with Ki-100 + Ki-61.
It’s much easier than making a cow from hamburgers, but a bit complicated.

The upper on the pic below is Ki-61 and the lower is Ki-100.(In the drawing, Ki-61 type 2 with fast-back canopy)
I have to mix the tear drop canopy of Ki-100 with the air intake and nose of Ki-61. Moreover, The nose should be extended.

Going to use AIRES detail up parts.

Simply happy to be able to get many kind of detail up parts for Hien in the market different from Ki-51.
But they are for Hien Type1, so I’m not sure about to what extent they are suitable for Type2…

The depth of the room for landing gears isn’t enough, so cut off and scrathed.

Wanna have some gimic around the landing gear, so touching the inner cover of the landing gear.
At first, press the both edges of 0.5mm brass wire and made holes on thoes respectively.

Push through the holes with 0.3mm wires.

Cut off the excesses.

Make short wires with holes as well and screw them into the inner cover of landing gear.
After that, hook them each other.

Something like this.

0.5mm brass pipe adhered to the inner cover of the landing gear.

And push 0.3mm brass wire through it.

Make holes for the wire near the edge of the room of landing gear.

To make the landing gears can be bent, make a joint with a soft plastic materials.

Something like this.

I have to confess that I gave up to make the landing gear can be retracted completely, due to maybe the insufficient depth of the room or not rubber tyre, but can represent the scene of just going to land.