The Little World

I was a bit premature in my assessment of the Fujimi kit of the Aichi Type 11. It is closer to Monogram than Tamiya.

The flash encountered was not too bad – nothing that knifing and sanding could not deal with. The location pins were in the right places. Yet the fuselage halves fit only with stress and there was some sanding and filling of the centre seam.

The ejector pin marks were also noticeable, but I scraped them down and refused to notice them. The interior didn’t need too much done to it, but crew was a good idea. I had one ex-Russian and one ex-Brit keyed up for the seats.

All this said, dry-fit stage showed that the basic animal was healthy. I did the inside in one day and then closed up. After that it was just a few days – the colour scheme was extremely simple and this time I was not risking any silvering – I picked up a rattle can of gloss lacquer to make the decals float down.

The one part that intrigued me is the interior colour. I have a Google image from a preserved example in a Japanese museum that shows iridescent blue-green inside the cockpit. I thought it gorgeous, and as there was still a real one in existence – albeit busted – I was willing to accept it as a colour guide.