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  #11  
Old 02-07-2009, 09:04 AM
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Now that I see the photo, I see that I misinterpreted Dan's description of the stripes. Definitely NOT the 47th.

I agree with your numbers, Mark, but my info indicates both units (25th and 59th) were full-up fighter sentais, rather than independent chutais. The markings on Dan's model and the photo Mike posted (white outlined oblique stripe on the vertical stabilizer with white outlined fuselage stripe forward of the empennage) are identical to those of the 25th Hiko Sentai, formed in November 1942 by expanding the 10th Independent Flying Chutai [dokoritsu hiko chutai] into a two chutai unit, with a third added in 1943. The 59th Hiko Sentai had similar markings, as you describe, but the fuselage stripe was thinner, the angle of the vertical tail stripe was at a different angle and, to the best of my knowledge, there was no white outline.

But then the problems.

1. None of the sources I have available to me (see below) indicate that the 25th Hiko Sentai was ever equipped with any model of the Ki-44.

2. None of the sources I have available indicate that either unit had a fourth chutai, so the green stripes are unlikely in the real world. If they were actually mis-printed blue stripes, it would have indicated the headquarters chutai.

My tentative conclusion is that the markings show an imaginary Ki-44 as it would have looked if it had been assigned to an imaginary 4th chutai of the 25th Hiko Sentai in 1943 or 1944.

Alternatively, it could represent an imaginary Ki-44 as it would have looked if it had been assigned to the headquarters chutai (blue stripe with a printing error making it look green) of the 25th Sentai.

This would be about the same level of mismatched markings as was the case with my Hampden.

Sources:

John F. Brindley, Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki ('Tojo'), Profile Aircraft 255, Windsor, UK: Profile Publications, 1973

Richard M. Bueschel, Nakajima Ki.44 Shoki Ia, b, c/IIa, b, c in Japanese Army Air Force Service, Canterbury, UK: Osprey Publishing, 1971

Ikuhiko Hata, Yasuho Izawa and Christopher Shores, Japanese Army Air Forces Fighter Units and their Ace 1931-1945, London: Grub Street, 2002.

Shoki, Sekai no Ketsusakuki [Great Aircraft of the World] No. 14, Tokyo: Bunrin-do, 1973

Donald W. Thorpe, Japanese Army Air Force Camouflage and Markings World War II, Fallbrook, CA: Aero Publishers, 1968.

Don

Last edited by Don Boose; 02-07-2009 at 09:07 AM.
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  #12  
Old 02-07-2009, 09:21 AM
GreMir GreMir is offline
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Don,
I think you are correct in your assesment that this is an imaginary markings.
In most of the old designs markings for the aircraft (colors too) were pure fiction....
I checked the description in the kit and there is reference to any particular aircraft, just general info about Ki-44.
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  #13  
Old 02-07-2009, 09:41 AM
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Well, it wasn't that long ago (ok it was, I'm getting old) that we all KNEW that all VVS airplanes were tractor green and baby blue due to limited research resources. I imagine the same thing was common in the eastern bloc circa 1986.
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  #14  
Old 02-07-2009, 12:39 PM
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Yes. And I am fully prepared for someone to weigh in with documentary evidence that there was a 4th chutai in the 25th Hiko Sentai and that it was equipped with Ki-44s. That's I why I always try to remember to add such caveats as "According to sources available to me . . ." (the Paper Models Forum equivalent of "Many scholars suggest that . . .").

Remember when Glen (birder) was building Petty Officer Koga's Zero Fighter and we were all puzzling over a tail and fuselage marking that turned out to be the line of discoloration from the airplane having been lying upside down in the muskeg? (At least that's what many scholars suggest . . .)

How you comin' on the build, Dan?

Don
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  #15  
Old 02-08-2009, 09:49 PM
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Thus far the build has consisted of perusing the kit a few more times. Yesterday was my dear wifes birthday, so we went to a local fish place that flies the fish in daily (after dropping Niklas off at the inlaw's for the night). I had some nice sea scallops in a ginger soy sauce with sticky rice, and came home to watch a dvd and relax. I am getting ready to print a B&W copy of the scan, so if I get a chance to sit down at the table this week, I can see about starting, since the first part I'll cut will be one missing the outside lines.
Oh - I guess I could cut out the formers and laminate them to another piece of card tonight too! I don't necessarily think it's intended but it won't hurt anything and at this point I'd take any of Bodian's instructions as general guidelines at best and use my experience to guide me - and my experience says I want a bit more thickness in my formers
Off to use the 3M type 77!
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Old 02-08-2009, 10:16 PM
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Ok - here are pictures of the kit. One question I do have is regarding the rising suns on the wings. Are they supposed to have a white outline as those on the fuselage have in the Marek build?
Attached Thumbnails
#2 - OTDAEABT 2 - Maly modelarz Ki-44 Shoki 5-86-mm-shoki-01.jpg   #2 - OTDAEABT 2 - Maly modelarz Ki-44 Shoki 5-86-mm-shoki-02.jpg  
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  #17  
Old 02-09-2009, 07:22 AM
GreMir GreMir is offline
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Dan,
Without being able to properly indentify the unit, there is no way to answer that....
Generally speaking it should have, but there are several profiles showing planes in green or brown camuflages without them.
Since this looks like a fictional paint scheme anyway I would say to build it as-is...
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  #18  
Old 02-09-2009, 11:48 AM
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I'm with Mike. Build it as it comes with regard to the markings (I'm working on the back story about how this particular Ki-44 came into the possession of the 25th Hiko Sentai in China in August 1944 and was used as a squadron hack by the Headquarters Chutai, which had to use field expedient green paint instead of blue for the markings. I haven't got to the part about it being lost in a P-40 dogfight with Lieutenant Terry Lee soon after the episode in which he rescued Burma from the clutches of Lai Choi San.)

The scallops in soy and ginger with sticky rice sounds wonderful. Saturday night, Lil picked me up at the office and after we saw "New in Town" (great date movie in the tradition of the old screwball comedies), we had a big plate of gyoza dumplings and yaki udon at the Issei Noodle shop (run by our friends, Robert and Naomi Pham, whose lives would give Terry and the Pirates a run for their money).

All this by way of explaining the lack of progress on my Shiden and to show that I can still hijack one of your threads effortlessly -- especially when I am procrastinating at the office.

Keep 'em flying!

Don
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  #19  
Old 02-09-2009, 12:42 PM
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If you look closely, you'll see that 'the way it is' shows a ring around 2 1/2 of the suns on the wings and lacking on the rest. Given the responses, I suppose that leads me to fill in the rings rather than try and create them - as that will be the simplest fix. The fuselage markings give a clear ring around both of the rising suns - so I'll leave them as is. Field applied camo can easily explain any discrepancies - heck on a nice hot tropical day, I can easily see using captured labor (who would try to do it wrong if possible) or even cheap local tropical labor who wouldn't know any better(paid with worthless trinkets allowing those who were supposed to do the painting time to enjoy some smuggled saki). :D
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  #20  
Old 02-09-2009, 01:03 PM
GreMir GreMir is offline
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I should be more clear in my response, sorry...
Fuselage and upper surfaces of the wings should have white bands. Lower surfaces of the wings shouldn't have them.
This controversy is not helped by the fact that colors are probably moved from the places they should be, leaving a white outline imitating the white band.
This is one of the reasons I'm not touching those really old kits - if you fix one thing, you will see another one that needs to be fixed as well. And since you fixed those two first, you cannot say no to the next.
In my case that lead to Westland Whirlwind from Modele Kartonowe ending up in the trash when I realized that after I fixed the fuselage, there was no way for the wings and engines to fit. And if I fixed them, I would have to paint the model to fix the color mismatches and lose all the surface detail......
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