Orlik's Shinden Crashes

[Sakrison]

Orlik’s Kyushu J7W1 Shinden, 1/33 scale
Published 3/2005; designed by? (“Opracowanie modelu”): Lukasz Fuczek

Maly Modelarz released a 1/33-scale kit of the Japanese Shinden in the mid-1980s (I think). I bought a copy on E-Bay and built it a few years ago. Though short on detail, it was a nice kit that went together well, scaled out accurately, and looked pretty good. It spent several years in the Paper Models exhibit at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh WI.

I’ve always been interested in this unusual airplane and I was excited when Orlik released it in paper, in 1/33 scale. Unfortunately, Orlik’s Shinden is a disappointment, plagued by inadequate instructions, poor fit, and (on my copy, at least) poor color match between parts.

Orlik’s Shinden comes in A4 book format with 4 pages of colored parts on cardstock, 2 pages of formers and other parts on paper, and two pages of assembly diagrams. The inside back cover shows four views of the aircraft: top, bottom, front, and port side. The inside front cover includes information about the airplane and written assembly instructions, in Polish. The covers are heavier card (about 0.5-0.75mm) and could be used as is or doubled for formers. (I used 1mm card from my scrap pile.) Assembly follows the usual cylinder-former-joiner strip method.

The assembly drawings are numbered 1 through 24. I don’t read Polish, so I followed the sequence in these drawings. Assembly begins with the cockpit, which is straightforward, except that a few parts are incorrectly numbered and one or two parts are not identified at all. Among these is the gimbal bracket at the base of the control column. While the drawing shows a part there, it’s not identified and it’s not clear what the part looks like. It took me a while to find it.

Assembly of the nose section is next. This is mostly taken up by the nose wheel well. The formers and bulkheads went together well but I had to do a lot of trimming of formers to get the fuselage skin sections to fit. The nose cone, built next, has four sections that went together well, but that assembly mated very poorly to the wheel well section. The circumference of the nose section is 2-3 mm smaller than the wheel well section it must mate to. The result, even after a lot of trimming and fitting, is a kind of “double chin” on the model, instead of the smooth profile it should have.

The fuselage section aft of the cockpit is the most complicated and least intuitive part of the assembly. It consists of an inner fuselage section and an outer section that forms the two huge air scoops that direct ram air to the aft-mounted radial engine. There is no diagram to show how this section is built. While the formers and bulkheads do appear on Diagram 24 (which shows all the formers), the drawings give no clue to how this section is assembled or what parts are used. I spent a good long time puzzling over the drawings before I worked it out. Here, again, the fit was poor, requiring a lot of trimming, especially of the longitudinal formers (Pts 39a-c). And the color of the outer fuselage section (Part 40) is a noticeably different shade of green from either of the outer panels adjacent to it.

I’ve assembled the formers for one wing and they fit well. I have no plans to finish the kit. I am already unhappy with the looks of the forward section. The rear of the plane will be time-consuming to build and I can see some other places where the diagrams are vague.

The Shinden is a fascinating aircraft and well deserving of a good quality kit in paper. This Orlik kit does not deliver. I can recommend this kit only to modelers with a lot of patience, a good working knowledge of Photoshop, and the wherewithal to make significant design changes to the kit parts.

This is the first Orlik kit I’ve attempted. This review is not intended to reflect in any way on any of Orlik’s other paper model kits. I have seen favorable reviews of other Orlik kits and I have a few other recent Orlik kits that I look forward to building.

(I posted a version of this review on Zealot.com in 2006.)

--David Sakrison — [email protected]
Ripon, Wisconsin USA

[Isaac]

I am a bit surprised with your assessment. I noted two completed build logs on the Polish forums and the finished products look appealing.

However , I just started work on this kit and will see if I too have your difficulties

I also did build the old Maly Modelarz model years ago which was super simple and OK but not great. Will see if the Orlik version is better . I do agree that Orlik can do a much proved kit of this interesting plane. Also I would like to see a jet version as well.

Isaac

[Isaac]

Here is a link to the Konradus site build log for this kit

WWW.KONRADUS.COM - FORUM MODELARZY KARTONOWYCH - Odp: [R/G] Kyushu J7W1 Shinden - Orlik 3/05

Also another log onb the Polish forum:

[Relacja\ galeria] Kyushu J7W1 Shinden - Orlik 3/05


And finaly my old Maly Modelarz build from many years ago. It is very poor by today's standard.


So I will continue building my Orlik version which appears better than the Maly, but may not be as good as can be. I will keep all posted.

Thanks

Isaac

[CMDRTED]

Pmodels put out a decent kit. It is in 1/33 scale has pretty good detail but lacks a cockpit. You could always try to use the cockpit from the orlik kit but then you have the expense of 2 kits.

[Lex]

Thanks for the review... That's some very conflicting information as the one on Korandus certainly seem attractive enough though...

[Tapcho]

From the Kondradus thread I can see how the segments are of different shades as Sakrison stated. I just wonder could it be intentional by the designer. If you look at the pictures of the real thing I found at an RC-plane forum here you can think that the designer of the model has just followed the references he gathered. The color of the original plane is not uniform in those pics either (the link shows three pics, there might be more if you browse it through). When it comes to part fit I say nothing because I haven't seen the kit itself. Just my two cents.
Interesting looking plane it is I must say.

Tappi