Nakajima Ki-43-IVb Hayabusa

[comrade harps]

Nakajima Ki-43-IVb Hayabusa
Tsurushima, Honshu, Japan
3rd Chutai, 68th Sentai
2 March, 1946


On the morning on 2 March, 1946, Lt Junichi Inamoto strapped himself into his Nakajima Ki-43-IVb Hayabusa. His mission was to take-off from his airstrip at Tsurushima, fly low and fast through the mountain valleys and over the coastal plains to make a hit-and-run attack on American naval armada massed in Sagami Bay. Whilst his orders were to return (his was not a special attack unit), he was also instructed that if injured or his plane badly damaged that he should attempt to sacrifice himself to the maximum detriment of the foreign invader.




The day before, on 1 March, he had flown two similar missions, being credited with the sinking of an American troop ship on his first sortie; on the second, his plane's single 250kg bomb clearly missed it's target, but he did strafe some landing craft. Now with a ship's silhouette marked under the canopy, he slipped along the valley between Mt. Hakone and Mt. Ashitaka before a turn to port and out over Sagami Bay, south of the beachhead near Atami. Flying with him were three others, two in Ki-43-IVbs and one in a Ki-43-III, but now he was alone. Air battles raged all around, as swarms of Japanese attack planes and their fighter escorts were engaged by Allied fighters and walls of flak.




It was a target rich environment for all concerned  As he had done the day before, Lt Inamoto picked out a likely target; a ship that looked undamaged, was close to shore, that appeared to be be disgorging GIs into the landing craft that nestled beside it. Skimming above the sea that was restless with shells, churning with wake, burning with oil and dark under billowing smoke (he noted that the weather report was clear, but it looked like he was flying into a monsoon), he fired his guns and skipped bombed his weapon into the side of the Haskell-class attack transport USS Gallatin. His plane peppered with flak, he turned for land, still firing bursts at landing craft as his mount shuddered. Unable to return home, he spied several American tanks wading and nearly ashore and pressed-on to greet them.



He missed. Hitting the water, his plane spun and disintegrated, throwing him out on wreck of a partially submerged and upturned LVT-3 amtrac. Suprisingly he survived, being captured unconscious and taken as a POW when a team of US Navy engineers arrived later in the day to clear the wreck from the beach.



The final version of the Ki-43, the -IV used a Ha-240 (based on the Ha-140 but with numerous improvements, including MW50 boosting ) generating 1,775 hp on take-off. With an all-new cooling system and a new canopy based on that of the Fw 190A-5 sent to Japan for evaluation, the -IV was originally meant to be a long-range fighter bomber, but as requirements changed it was put into production by Tachikawa as the Ivb, with reduced fuel and numerous weight savings. Armed with two  20 mm Ho-5 cannon in wings and two fuselage mounted 12.7 mm Ho-103 machine guns, the -IVb omitted the -IV's underwing hardpoints for a standard load of a single 250kg weapon. Only 29 of these were delivered, all being used by the 68th Sentai.

[Army of One]

Interesting story........love what you have done there with the kit......amazing eye catching scheme.......

[Dizzyfugu]

Oh, a cousin! 

1:72 Kawasaki Ki-121-I "Hitofuki", 105th sentai, 23rd dokuritsu chutai - (Whif/Luft'46/kit conversion) by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

I like your Fw 190 canopy installation; great idea on this basis. 

[NARSES2]

Model and backstory really works and as said previously the scheme's a cracker 

[ChernayaAkula]

Cool design! 

[Dork the kit slayer]

 Gets a big  from me

[RAFF-35]

What a fantastic build  love the colour scheme  and the story is very good too 

[zenrat]

Good one brother.

[comrade harps]

Oh, a cousin!  

1:72 Kawasaki Ki-121-I "Hitofuki", 105th sentai, 23rd dokuritsu chutai - (Whif/Luft'46/kit conversion) by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

I like your Fw 190 canopy installation; great idea on this basis.  

Dizzyfugu, your work is always an inspiration.  

As for the canopy, well, that was meant to be a Spitfire/Seafire bubble job, but I hashed that up (twice) and the '190 canopy was Plan C. I had to leave it open because the angles of the front and back pieces didn't join up.

The Ki-43-IVb is the fourth part of my Nakajima Triology Quartet, adding to:

• Nakajima trilogy Pt.1: Ki-27b Nate: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,37927.0.html
• Nakajima trilogy Pt.3: Ki-43-III Hayabusa: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,37978.0.html
• Nakajima trilogy Pt.2: Ki-43-II-KAI Hayabusa: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,37952.0.html

Thank you all for your responses; I really enjoyed making this (except when I kept on stuffing up the canopies).

[Dizzyfugu]

A very nice family - and the bunch looks believable, too. 

[Tophe]

Very beautiful new airplane in the WW2 collection! Thanks!

[DogfighterZen]

Great work on all 4 of them!

[Glenn Gilbertson]

Interesting story & a great colour scheme!