15 KiB
Tachikawa Ki-55 trainer
This is the first model airplane I made. It made many flaws to it, but these will be learning moments for the next model.
The store
I found this Fujimi 1/72 scale kit at Flashie, a store in Eindhoven, Netherlands for €18.00. This store has everything related to aviation. Books, helmets, decals, badges, model kits, even old airplane equipment. If you are a fan of (military) airplanes, try to visit the actual store in person, there is much to see here!
The Tachikawa Ki-55 kit stood out to me for its beautiful box-art. A soft blue sky with an orange airplane on it just caught my eye. It seems I have the "Cobalt Blue 1" box from 1983. Sadly I have not figured out the name of the artist yet.
The airplane
I could find three real airplanes of this model on the internet left in museums. One is in Thailand, in the Royal Thai Air Force Museum. Another in China, in the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution and the China Aviation Museum, both in Beijing.
The 陸軍９９式高等練習機キ５５, was manufactured by the Tachikawa (立川) Aircraft Company in 1940 and is a stripped version of the Ki-36 bomber- and reconnaissance plane. Which then became the Type 99 advanced trainer. Type 99 means it was created in 1939, the Japanese year 2599, which is year 14 of the Shōwa emperor. It seats 2 pilots, each with their own controlstick in the cockpit. Kawasaki also produced some of this aircraft.
The Allied nickname for this aircraft was "Ida", similar to the Ki-36.
The engine: Single Hitachi Army Type 98 Ha-13a 9-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, rated at 510hp.
A book that states some of this data is: Japanese aircraft of the Pacific War, by Francillon, René J. (1979). Pages 250~254.
- ISBN: 9780370000336
Here is a photo of the aircraft, on page 252: Tachikawa Ki-55 of the Kumagaya Flying School. (Aireview.)
Some specifications according to the instructions that came with the kit:
- Crew: 2
- Span: 11.80m
- Length: 8.00m
- Height: 3.64m
- Wing area: 18.1m²
- Max speed: 349km/h
- Empty weight: 1292kg
An advanced version, the Ki-72, would have a retractable undercarriage and a 600hp Hitachi Ha-38 9-cylinder engine with a 3-bladed propellor. This was designed by Tachikawa, but would never be manufactured.
The model
The Ki-55 trainer does not have windows at the bottom, meant for reconnaissance and to monitor the bombs that the Ki-36 had. These window holes and transparent window parts however, are present in the kit. Likely, Fujimi re-used the Ki-36 moulds and moulded orange plastic in them in order to create the Ki-55 kit. Sadly the manual that comes with the kit, does not state this.
I used Tamiya putty to fill up the holes.
Canopy masking
I used Tamiya masking tape and -fluid to cover the canopy.
Puttied recesses
There are also recessed holes in the model, which are part of the moulding process. These have been filled with putty and then sanded. Still, some are a bit visible. I noticed after primering the first time, the holes were not covered up smooth enough, so I sanded it down and applied more putty.
Cockpit
I wanted to paint the entire cockpit by hand with Vallejo acryllic paints. But in hindsight, using Goblin Green for a cockpit might not have been the best choice. I had plenty of Kawasaki green lacquer, which would have looked much better.
I sanded off the primer from the sides, so that I can cement these together in a later stage.
Puttied wings to fuselage
Now I wanted to connect the wings to the fuselage of the airplane. I puttied all the seams and sanded these down. Then I noticed that some of the panel lines did not line up. So I puttied up some lines and scribed new ones that were aligned. The cockpit was also masked.
I used scribing tape and a scribing chisel from Sujiborido I bought at the hobby show in Shizuoka in 2025.
Colours
The colour of the aircraft is always a difficult topic to get right. While the actual aircraft in Thailand looks very yellow, the box art of this kit looks slightly more orange. I decided to try the Mr. Color C-109 Character Yellow from Mr. Hobby, which actually looks like the colour used on the box art. This colour I liked a lot, so I sticked with it.
I use these dropper bottles to mix the lacquer with leveling thinner, which have really speed up my airbrushing process. I drop a little metal ball in them to make sure I can easily agitate the paint to mix it later.
These are the main laqcuer colours I used for the model. I read on Wikipedia that this aircraft had "2-bladed wooden propeller", so I decided to give the propellor a brown colour. The white stripes were just my own addition.
Panel lines
I used Tamiya panel line accent color (brown) to fill in the lines. On the right you can see some filled lines and on the left some that were not yet filled. Its a pretty fun part of the process. After all the scribing of all those lines, seeing the panel liner flow so easily through is very satisfying.
Cowling
The cowling that covers the engine had a problem. The back is open, so if you would look a the airplane from behind, you could see some gaps on both sides. I used bread clips to fill in the holes on the sides, which solved that problem.
Decals
Luckily, the decals were in good shape. I read that especially the red hinomaru roundels might be susceptible to tear. But after letting hem soak long enough in water, the decals were easily applied. It is challenging to make sure they are applied symmerically.
There is the kanji character 大 on the rudder, and the katakana character ホ on the cowling. The black character 大 with white edges seems to be the symbol of the Tachiarai Flying School, which was in Fukuoka. This book: "Nakajima Ki.43 Hayabusa I-III", which I also found at Flashie, had this symbol listed as such. But it is the only source I could find for now. The ホ character likely just serves as a designation to distinguish it from other aircraft of the same type. The other available characters on the decal sheet are い and へ.
- ISBN: 9780850450224
The tyres of the wheels were airbrushed, the rest painted with acryllic paints and washes.
Preparing the base
Next a little base to put the model on. I thought the symbol on the Japanese flag of the rising sun would look nice. I think I saw something like this before somewhere at a model exhibition. I got several of these mirrors from the second-hand store.
I thought it would make sense to start with the circle. I used a sake cup I got as a gift from a sake brewer in Ōgaki as the base for the hole. Then primed it and airbrushed with Tamiya LP-7 pure red lacquer.
But, a mirror has a very smooth surface, to which paint will have a hard time to attach to. It can chip off easily.
Next I wanted to make the lines. But by trying to align the lines with individual lines of masking tape proved pretty difficult. I thought this would not line up properly, so I abandoned this method.
I printed the flag on a paper and then used that as a stencil to cut out from lined up masking tape.
To make it easier to apply to the mirror, I cut it in 4 parts.
And then airbrushed the rest also with Tamiya LP-7 pure red.
The completed model
After removing all the masking tape, the base looked nice. Not perfect, but I was happy with it. Unlike the canopy, which sadly seemed to have a kind of residue on the inside of it.
I also added some weathering to beat up the plane with oil paint and a Tamiya weathering set.
I do not know what caused this, because I did put masking tape on the inside of the entire canopy. I fear that it is glue that caused these smudges.
The flaws
Like I mentioned, my work contains flaws. They serve as learning moments, in order to improve the next model. Maybe you will find it helpful to see my mistakes.
I did not fully manage to hide the recessed holes. This is a matter of checking after priming the model. After priming, just sand the primer off and add putty again. Then add primer again. Repeat until completely smooth.
Just use Kawasaki green for the interior of the cockpit. I thought it would be okay to just use my "Goblin Green" Vallejo acryllic paint, because I thought it would not matter so much. In hindsight, spraypainting a nice military green for the cockpit, would have been much better.
I cut off parts of the front window of the canopy, because I did not pay attention. The canopy also had gotten smudges on the inside.
Sometimes my airbrush "spat" out the paint, which results into some tiny, but visible, droplets on the coat of paint.
Have you seen the tail wheel? Neither have I. Probably it got lost somewhere in my garage where my spray booth is...
There is a glue fingerprint on the left wing, because I had some cement on my finger and picked up the plane.
And then there are some imperfections on the mirror paint shape, with some parts chipped off.
Nevertheless, this was a fun model to work on, I hope I can learn from this mistakes to make my next model much better!
External links & sources
Others who have built this model: