[MichaelS]

Aichi D3A2 “Val”

In the late 20’s early 30’s the air forces of the world started experimenting with dive bombing. If you think about it this is just an early form of “smart bomb” with the smarts provided by the guy holding the control stick.

The “Val” was the first aircraft to drop bombs during the Pearl Harbor attack. During the war it is credited with sinking more tonnage than any axis airplane, something I did not know.

This is Aaron Murphy’s 1:33 model. He is planning on releasing this, a Pearl Harbor version and the later D3A3 which was used at Midway and Guadalcanal.

Murph had learned a lot since his earlier kits. His kits now come with internal formers and what I call “Nobi” joiners. This type of joiner I first ran into on Nobi’s kits. I think it is by far the best way to join fuselage sections. If done carefully there is no “step” between sections. It is fairly easy to convert S&P type kits to this type of joiner. You just have to do a little prior planning.

Also during development of this bird Aaron and some of the other “big hitter” paper designers were chatting on a FB Messenger group that I created. They were tossing around ideas and Aaron made some changes and also redid two of the sheets after being given some updated information. The Midway version is a little different. I believe that our friend Pericles will be beta building that kit.

This is just a few minutes work. I did my usual glue the formers to some thicker paper. I have developed the technique to glue the joiner strips on as I cut them out. Then I lay them flat under a book overnight.


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