1/48 Eduard Ki-115 Tsurugi

by Goran Kovacic

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This little Japanese plane was actually constructed to be a suicide aircraft.  Only 104 of these were built, but none of them went into operational service because the war ended.  It had an open cockpit and detachable landing gear, because returning to base was not an option.

In January 1945 the Nakajima factory was ordered to build a simple design suicide aircraft with a maximum speed of 515km/h (320 mph) and in two months the first prototypes were made. First flights were disappointing, ground handling handling was poor.  It was also designed to use many Japan's surplus engines that would otherwise go to waste but all production machines used the 14 cylinder radial Nakajima 23. Bomb load was as large as 800kg (1764 lb).

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Taken everything into consideration, the kit is really nice. The panel lines and rivets are beautifully engraved, although the smaller parts are not so good, and a lot of work has to be put into them.  Eduard also provides photo etch and color photo etch parts in this Profipack version as well as express masks.

Assembly is fairly easy.  There were some minor problems while attaching the fuselage to the wings, but nothing serious.  Landing gear are a major problem with this kit.  They are quite thin and tend to brake easily. Decals are also nice, and even nicer with a little help from Micro Sol.

I decided not to do any weathering on this aircraft, because these planes were planned to have only one flight, so I really don't see where they could have had the chance to get dirty.

Figures are also from Eduard.   I can't really tell you about their quality or stuff like that because I'm one of those airplane modelers who doesn't build figures at all.  Instead I find it better to give them to the armor modelers who will know what to do with them.

Any comments or critiques are more than welcome.

Goran

Photos and text © by Goran Kovacic