The Little World

Well, this little Pavla kit was fun to do. it has everything fastened now – PE dashboard, pilot, PE machine gun, and pitot tube, and the nicest pair of spats you’ll see outside of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

And I’ll bet they fell like autumn leaves, too. Sleek, smooth, underpowered, and dead meat in front of a Hellcat, Corsair, Lightning, or Mustang. They might have been effective bombing civilians in China, but by the mid 40’s they were more a liability than an asset.

Still, reports have some of them being committed as kamikaze craft in ’45. Hard to say if they would have been effective even then.

The decals from Pavla were just on the margin of usability – the white bands showed a tendency to fracture. I was not too fussed, but I’m pleased to see the tail flash went on safely. The red sun insignia were no worry, though they were surprisingly thick compared to the white bands. The control surfaces were picked out with a propelling pencil.

It does you good to do one of these occasionally – a wring-out of your basic modelling and problem-solving skills and a rewarding model at the end of it.