Twin Tony.

[Zeke]

Hello everyone...it has been an absolute AGE since I've posted in here, however, I find myself between serious projects at the moment so I've finally managed to finish something Whiffie!... 
So, here we go...first, a little back story/history ...

Kawasaki Ki-61T–I "Tsuin Hien"

In the early months of 1945 Japan was in a serious condition. It's massive gains during the early years of the war had been eroded by the Allies and now, the wolves were at the door!
   The Americans had taken the Pacific islands one at a time, shrinking the once mighty Japanese empire, down to just a few outlying islands and the Homeland itself. The B-29 bombers were beginning to range freely over the Japanese mainland and the once sovereign skies of Nippon were becoming more and more difficult to defend. The Japanese air industries had shown, time and again, that they were incapable of creating the weapons needed to defeat these monster bombers and time was running out.
   Kawasaki, already had one of the few machines capable of getting anywhere near the four engined heavies but the limited success of the KI-61 Hien (Swallow) was proving to be disappointing to the Imperial Japanese Army.
   The designers at Kawasaki turned to their allies, the Germans, for inspiration. Already using the war proven Daimler DB601 engine, the idea of joining two airframes together in a "Zwilling" was nothing new to the Germans but to the Japanese it offered a way of getting a high performance fighter at minimum cost.
   If the new aircraft could climb fast enough and had longer range, it meant that the mighty Superfortress, so far almost unstoppable, would finally be at the mercy of the Japanese defenders.
   Work moved swiftly ahead with the conversion of a number of "Hei" Ki-61-I airframes. The machines were joined with a new wing centre section and stabiliser. The new aircraft was given the heavier armament of 4x20mm and 2x12.7mm machine guns, as well as the capability of carrying drop tanks, bombs or even gun packs for greater versatility.
   The prototype was surprisingly quick, with a top speed of over 630 km/h but the test pilots described the ground handling of the machine as "shocking" with a massive turning circle due to the wide spacing of the main wheels. Visibility from the one cockpit was poor and it would require very careful manoeuvring on the narrow taxy-ways. The rate of roll was described as "sluggish" while at higher speeds longitudinal stability was marginal at best.
   To combat these shortcomings, the engineers at Kawasaki decided to shorten the wingspan, cutting 0.75m from each wing and giving it a new tip. The fuselage was cut and an extension "plug" of 0.37m was added to lengthen the tail and increase the effect of the vertical surfaces. The most complicated alteration however, was the design of a unique "cantilever" undercarriage arm that swung the main legs inboard as they extended. This reduced the aircraft's track to a much more useable width and the new design was rushed into production.
   It took a while for the service pilots to get to grips with the odd machine, it's lop-sided configuration causing some concern, especially to the less experienced crews. Once in squadron service, the "Tsuin Hien" "Twin Swallow", gained respect from both air and ground crews for being tough and battle worthy. The sleek airframe proved itself to be fast and with exceptional range (thanks to the huge fuel cell in the right hand fuselage, taking the place of the cockpit) they could hit at the B-29's a long way from the Japanese coast, long before the American crews were expecting to see any resistance.
   A number of B-29's were lost in the first encounters, with the 20mm guns of the new aircraft being capable of doing severe damage to the Boeings, their long range keeping them out of harms way of the bombers .50" cal guns.
   Several Japanese pilots gained "Ace" standing by knocking down the previously formidable Superfortress, some even resorting to ramming attacks to get the job done and stop the attacking bombers. While even in fighter to fighter combat, the twin engined design was a tough target due to its high speed and heavy armament. A number of P-51's and P-47's fell under the guns of the Kawasaki, until the escorting fighters learned to use their aircrafts' greater manoeuvrability to get the upper hand on the significantly bigger twin.
   The one major drawback of the Tsuin was the severely over-complicated undercarriage, although useful in ground handling, the cantilever linkage was troublesome and required constant maintenance, with even the slightest heavy landing causing major damage. Eventually, this over-complicated linkage proved the aircrafts' downfall and slowly diminishing serviceability rates saw this capable, if unusual fighter, being sidelined for more conventional types.
   As with most Japanese aircraft, when the end of the Empire came, the remaining Tsuin Hien were used in special attack squadrons. Stripped of armament and loaded with fuel and high explosives, piloted by raw recruits, they joined the ranks of the Kamikaze.






If you fancy, I've got some build photo's and some more shots of the finished thing?
It's a pleasure being back in here, even if it's only for a short while...oh, and I blame Tophe for this madness...

[TheChronicOne]

Yebat!!!!  Blyat!   


Yes, I can see some Tophe influence...    Fantastic build, mate! It looks fabulous....     

[NARSES2]

My oh my, fantastic build 

Love to see some more shots of it

[zenrat]

 

[PR19_Kit]

That looks terrific, the paint job is AWESOME! 

[Dizzyfugu]

Sweet!  I esp. like the narrowed landing gear track, even though the original wells look a little goofy. But it's not unplausible, the F8F had a similar arrangement/mechanism as suggested in the Twin Tony. I also like the paint scheme.

[Tophe]

Wonderful!
Facing the Twin-Mustang, it would have made the skies "different"...

[Zeke]

Sweet!  I esp. like the narrowed landing gear track, even though the original wells look a little goofy. But it's not unplausible, the F8F had a similar arrangement/mechanism as suggested in the Twin Tony. I also like the paint scheme.

Yeah well, to be honest, it's a total miscalculation on my part. I went ahead and put the fuselage & wing bits together and only then realised that the undercarriage was WAY too far apart! It looked totally stupid, so I had to come up with some way of narrowing the track. If I'd planned it better from the start I'd have moved the entire unit inboard...

[Zeke]

If you lot are ok with a bit of self-indulgence on my part, I'll show you some of the build process?

It starts with the two standard Hasegawa 1/32 Ki-61 fuselages, held together by the brand new wing centre section. This is made by bending some plastic card around aerofoil shaped ribs and spars, with copious amounts of glue and filler holding it all in place.




The rear part of it gets some spars and ribs put into it for the open flaps.




The new tail section is a slab of thick plastic card, suitably sanded down into an aerofoil shape and then adorned with panel lines and the hinge line for the elevator. The fabric effect is made by thin tape sections glued on for the ribs, with the bits in between hollowed out a little.




The lengthened fuselage is done just like the Fw190D, with a simple straight "plug". Not entirely effective I don't think as it looks a little uneven but it's going to have to do.




This left the canopy on the starboard fuselage to deal with. I did consider turning this into a twin-seat aircraft but in the end thought it would be more effective with the cockpit replaced by a fuel cell. This is canopy part 1 as I just sanded off the frames and put some panel lines and rivet detail on there.



it wasn't going to stay like that...but that's another story...

[PR19_Kit]

It's 1/32 scale? 

Strewth, even more impressive, that's a BIG model!

[Zeke]

It's 1/32 scale? 

Strewth, even more impressive, that's a BIG model!

I know!  But I thought "Hey, if you're going to do it, do it BIG!"...

[Leading Observer]

It's 1/32 scale? 

Strewth, even more impressive, that's a BIG model!

I know!  But I thought "Hey, if you're going to do it, do it BIG!"...

Puts a whole new meaning on "Go big or go home" 

[Tophe]

Our friend Bungle made a different Twin-Hien in the past: www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php/topic,45326.15.html (June 17, 2018)
This is a whole family now! Great!

[NARSES2]

If you lot are ok with a bit of self-indulgence on my part, I'll show you some of the build process?

Most certainly 

[Zeke]

If you lot are ok with a bit of self-indulgence on my part, I'll show you some of the build process?

Most certainly 

Thank you...then I shall continue... 

Wings were up next and I decided that the long wing of the original Tony was making this already big conversion, even bigger. TBH I never liked the wings of the Tony anyway, they always seemed a little out of proportion. I chopped about 23mm of each wing, then made complete new wing tips out of the chopped off bits, thinning them down, making aerofoil sections and positions for the formation light.



Then I decided ti up-gun it with extra 12.7mm machine guns in the wings, so the new guns got drilled, access panels scribed on the upper surface and a little gas vent positioned just for fun...



Then it was on to that troublesome undercarriage. If I'd put more thought into the actual design and not just allowed my enthusiasm to get the better of me i'd have done a much better job.  As it was, the original oleo positions made the track much too wide and it looks just plain stoopid!
This meant I had to find an emergency way of narrowing the track...I know, I thought, I'll use a cantilevered undercarriage...what could go wrong? 



Please try not to work out the geometry of the cantilever because It won't work!...     At least it dramatically narrowed the track and made it look much better. 
So, wings were slotted into place (cue much cursing and swearing getting everything lined up and level, then I opted to change the covered canopy. Basically I wanted it to look much more streamlined and smoothed over and not just some painted windows. That meant prising off the transparent bit, filling it with good old Milliput and then sanding it down to shape once that had dried hard.



Much better, even though it meant I had to re-scribe the panels and do some more fastener detail.
With everything finally sanded smooth, the basic re-scribing done to the whole airframe and a general clean-up; it's time for paint!...