D4Y8 Suisei-Kai (Judith)

[sideshowbob9]

I knew some BBs had been raised and rebuilt but didn't know it was that many!

I have an E15K too so Aichi don't have it all there own way! What was the relationship between Aichi and Yokosuka? Was it something akin to Consolidated making TBUs (TBYs) for Vought cos they were too busy making F4Us?

I am definately developing a thing for the D4Y. I currently have an eye on a D4Y3 to compliment my D4Y2. May do the D4Y2 in FAA colours as in many ways it's what the Fairey Barracuda should have been.

[sequoiaranger]

>What was the relationship between Aichi and Yokosuka?<

Yokosuka was the city where the Air Technical Arsenal was that designed aircraft, and built prototypes or small batches of test aircraft. Then, someone like Aichi might manufacture them en masse.

[sequoiaranger]

Serendipity. Gotta love it.

I was looking in the box of my Roden He-111 for parts for my Aichi 119 build, and found that the decal sheet had two huge fiery comets on it!!  BOINGGG! A bell went off in my head (I'm taking pills for that), and now those decals will appear on my Suisei-Kai. After all, "Suisei" means "comet", and a larger Suisei needs a larger comet. The comet decal will be a little longer than the canopy.

I am now "convinced" that the proper camo scheme for my Suisei-Kai will be medium magenta over light magenta (for dusk attacks!). It will be a Kamikaze, and "responsible" for the famous photo of the USS Enterprise's forward elevator atop a towering explosion cloud a few hundred feet up. The large comet decal is red and yellow (with a touch of blue making magenta) so will fit in perfectly.

GAWD, I love the fusion of circumstance!

[sideshowbob9]

Serendipy...dippidy..dip...ahh forget it.

Fortunate news about the decals. Looking forward to seeing the completed article. The magenta scheme should really make it stand out in a crowd.

Of course now I'm gonna have to ask about this.....Enterprise Incident.

[sequoiaranger]

>Of course now I'm gonna have to ask about this.....Enterprise Incident.<

First of all, my dad was a junior radar officer aboard the Enterprise from the early raids on the Marshalls through Santa Cruz. He was brought back to the States to attend Radar School in Florida and never went back to sea during the war. He became in charge of the US Navy's Electronic Warfare Division at the Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego.

So it's no wonder that the USS Enterprise is my favorite ship.

When cruising off Okinawa in May of 1945 (I believe the dates and time is right; if not, close) the Enterprise got hit with a Kamikaze and the resultant explosion thrust her forward elevator 400 feet up into the air atop a column of smoke in one of the most dramatic photographs of the war (IMHO). Enterprise sailors found the remains of the Japanese pilot and his "dogtags" and he was identified as "Tomi Zai". Anyway, here is the picture:

[sideshowbob9]

Holy cr*p! She was a tough old girl! Criminal she wasn't preserved.

He became in charge of the US Navy's Electronic Warfare Division at the Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego.

Whoa! Did he keep this position during the early Cold War years? That would have been an interesting time to be in that line of work.

[Allan]

Hi Ranger,
I've never noticed that boys' names were given to fighters and girls' to bombers before, so thanks for drawing that to my attention.
I quite like Japanese planes too so we have that in common.
As for the marking/camo of your plane, we'll leave that in your very capable hands as I'm sure you'll produce a winner!!!!
Allan in Canberra

[sequoiaranger]

>Holy cr*p! She was a tough old girl!<

Luckily Enterprise never took a torpedo, though dodged dozens and got hit by bombs and Kamikazes. She was hit and repaired many times. When considering the damage done to Yorktown and Hornet before they succumbed, this class of ship were die-hards!

>Criminal she wasn't preserved.<

Don't get me started! The non-preservation of perhaps the US Navy's GREATEST ship is a sore spot with me. When I was a child in the '50's I wrote the then President Eisenhower a plea to save her, and I still have the return letter somewhere. I have a piece of her flight deck (saved by the USS Enterprise Association when she was scrapped) that I cherish.

>Whoa! Did he keep this position during the early Cold War years? That would have been an interesting time to be in that line of work.<

Yes. When the USS Pueblo, an electronic "spy ship" was captured by the North Koreans in 1968, I didn't see my dad for months as he flitted across the country from agency to agency to explain what might have actually fallen into "enemy" hands. His "SINEWS" electronics graced most US Navy ships at the time. I was forbidden to travel to Communist lands in case "they" captured me and held me for ransom.