Hasegawa

1/48 Kawasaki Ki-45 Kai Tei Toryu (Nick)

Kit Number: Jt95 or 19195

Reviewed by  Robert DeMaio, IPMS# 45186

MSRP: $58.95 Kit Supplied by Dragon Models USA: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Brief History The Imperial Japanese Army Air Force Ki-45's first flight was in May 1941 after much testing of twin engines on other aircraft as far back as 1937. It was officially introduced in that October to the military, and used by both the Imperial Army and Navy. Initially it was used to as a long range bomber escort but was no match against the American Flying Tigers and other single engine fighters. The Ki-45 had gone thru many design changes during its inception caused by fuselage and armament configurations, and were placed in Interceptor roles against enemy bombers. Hasegawa and Nichimo Differences Many years have gone by the plastic modeler's world with only the Nichimo 1/48 scale kit available, until this Hasegawa release. Many of us would catch wind of new kit releases due out and sell the old kits in anticipation of a better detailed manufacturing kit. Well, I hope you aren't the one of those many who did that, for they are two different versions and the Nichimo kit is still a very fine caste model of a different version with recessed exterior panel lines and decent interior cockpit parts, but no choice to display it with open canopies. The Nichimo kit is a KAIc-Hei is from the prototype aircraft, a modified night fighter equipped with a 37mm ventral belly canon, two 20mm dorsal canons, and a rear seat machine gunner; no nose armament. The fuselage has extra windows behind the pilot and the tail appears narrower. The Hasegawa kit represents the Kai Tei version with a nose mounted 37mm cannon, two 20mm dorsal guns and rear machine gunner. The Hasegawa kit wins fine workmanship details all over, hands down. If I were to build the Nichimo kit, I'd want to use the whole cockpit from the Hasegawa kit, but it's too costly to do that. Hasegawa Construction The Hasegawa Ki-45 kit is as close to a shake-n-bake kit as I ever assembled. The parts are very clean and no visible flash to the eye. The cockpit parts number thirty-one pieces, with separate side wall switch panel boxes, a small instrument and parachute for the rear gunner. Protruding from the rear gunner's bulkhead extends two racks of ammo cans. The pilot's flight stick shape is so correct, and two thumbs up for the Pilot's instrument panel. It's molded with raised instruments if you are a great dry brusher, or you can use the water slide decal to overlay on top of it. I'm a dry brush guy if you give me a good piece to work with, but I compared the decal to the instrument panel and they're both correct in my picture library. I decided to use the decal overlay and it came out superb with every instrument lined up on each dial. Water and Solvaset socked down that puppy beautifully! Same offer was given to the rear gunner's panel box. This interior yearned to be displayed with open canopies. What surprised me was the lack of seat belts. A one forty-eighth scale kit priced at $45.00, and not even photo-etched seatbelts. I added my own seatbelts. The two 20mm dorsal guns come up barrel short to extend thru the top structure and are purposely molded so because they can not be seen, and the external barrel parts are separate to prevent alignment problems. The design of the belly mounted ventral canon created a long fuselage concave trough that was not modified on the actual aircraft when the cannon became nose mounted. The Hasegawa kit shows it correctly with the trough still in place. The rear gunner's machine gun has a separate gun sight and ammo can parts to attach. For the engine aficionado modelers, you may want to buy two kits. Two types of engine parts and cowlings are included in the kit; the collective type exhaust pipe, which was my choice to build, and the thrust type. No massive amount of parts for these engines. An oil cooler ring, engine casing with a vinyl bushing placed inside and mounted to a one piece engine. When the model is complete, the prop and nose assembly will mount without glue into the bushing. Behind the engines is the main landing gear bay housings nicely detailed inside. When you glue the wing halves and these pods together, you see that Hasegawa's engineering is right on. Even the nose piece to the fuselage was a perfect fit. The wings to fuselage was one of the best alignments I've seen in kits. During the assembly of this kit, I sent some time on the floor looking for small parts launched from my finger nails. I misplaced a clear piece on the operating table because it was the size of a pin head. The Optivisor came in very handy, especially when I masked each window with Micro Mask where the frame ridges were very shallow. The Pilot's canopy is in two pieces and my picture sources show it as a one piece canopy in an open position. I found it annoying trying to glue them together, and one piece would have been greatly appreciated. My picture sources and on-line computer searches show it as a one piece swing open canopy. I added a support wire even though I couldn't find pictures of just the canopy. Instead of using the kit decals for the white bands around the wings and fuselage, I painted them on, and mounted the kit Hinomaru decals. Testors Japanese Green was used for the overall color. I mixed Yellow with Orange paint to get the proper color for the leading edge wing. Paint chips were added with Flat Aluminum. I glossed the model with Glosscoat, and when dried, applied the kit decals with Solvaset for the 53rd Flight Regiment, 3rd Squadron (59), at Matsudo Air Base, February 1945. Dullcoat was applied for the final finish. As you can perceive by this review, the kit is a keeper and totally recommended. My thanks to Dragon Models USA for the review sample. References: · Japanese Army Air Force Camouflage and Markings World War II, Donald Thorpe. · Japanese Cockpit Interiors, Monogram Close-Up Series. · Japanese Military Aircraft series by Eduardo Cea. · http://en.wikipedia.org

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