The Little World

I finally got to build a model of an airplane my uncle Jack shot at on Dec. 7, 1941.

Fujimi kits are thin on the ground here in Western Australia at the best of times and these aren’t the best of times. But a shelf of them turned up at the local shop and I just saw this one out of the corner of my eye. It’s a type that I have been searching for for years – hoping for an old Airfix kit if nothing else. I thought this infinitely better.

The sprue trees showed that this is a Japanese product, even if you ignore the fact that the rest of the box and instructions are all in the Japanese language. They looked perfect and I noted that as this kit depicted the Type 11 and Type 22 there were alternative canopies and propellers. I would build the navy version, naturally.

No separate wheels – they were moulded right into the spats. I prefer this, as it means you can close up the gear and paint it, then pick out the tyre rubber.

No aircrew, either. Don’t know if this is a Fujimi thing or a general Japanese practice. I needed to scout the people spares for a couple of candidates as I was going to have the plane in a picture diving on USS ARIZONA. If I could find a 1.1″ Chicago piano model I’d make up a diorama of Jack on the USS NEW ORLEANS shooting the jib off a dockyard crane in an effort to down the Val. The Val got away but the crane didn’t.

Instructions were fortunately clear enough to assemble the thing and they were wise enough to list the colour call-out in GSI Creos paint numbers. I use these so the confirmation was a help.

The decal sheets looked good, but with the number of options for marking, they had to issue two sheets. My choice was one of the plainer versions, so there’ll be a good set of spares for the future. The main thing you have to careful with using the Japanese military markings is to get the red Hinomaru the right way up. I’ve seen a number of models spoiled when people have put these on askew.