Hasegawa 1/72 Fuji T-1A

HASEGAWA 1:72 FUJI T.1A

Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster) (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted: 21 August 2009

Kit Details:

Hasegawa Series A14 - no. JS-058 - Fuji T-1A - Japan Self Defence Air Force Trainer

Aircraft History:

The Fuji T-1A Hatsutaka was the first Japanese aircraft produced after World War II and replaced the American built T-6 Texan in the pilot trainer role. Its roots and development stemmed largely from another North American aircraft at the time, the F-86 Sabre, although the Fuji aircraft was inherently its own design. In fact Fuji produced the aircraft so that it had many parts in common with both the F-86 and T-33 to facilitate maintenance. First flown in 1958, 64 examples were produced of which approximately two-thirds were T-1A's, most of which were assigned to Ashiya Airbase. Ashiya based T-1's were painted white as it was believed this would inhibit rust breaking out from being stationed near the sea whilst those stationed at inland Gifu Airbase were left in bare metal finish.

The Kit:

Three sprues contain 30 white injection molded parts that have raised panel lines and surface detail that befits the era of 60's model kit engineering. There is a very small amount of flash that needs to be removed from some of the smaller parts and a few ejector pin marks to deal with. Some parts, eg: pilot seats, have ugly mold seams down the middle. Two clear parts - which are severely scratched due to their age - are on a separate very small sprue.

Instructions:

A slightly fatter than A5 four page booklet is provided with data and history on the front page. The centre spread contains 5 assembly steps which are accompanied by a running commentary in translated English on the order of putting parts together. Most of the drawings are pretty easy to follow by virtue of small amount of parts and locating pins. A sprue map and list of all of the parts is also provided on these pages while basic painting information is provided by colour name only (eg: gray, orange, white, dark blue, etc). The back page provides a sideview and a split top/bottom view for painting and decalling with generic paint names supplied, presumably Gunze Sangyo et al were not invented yet.

Construction:

I commenced as ever in the cockpit, and this kit supplies two alien looking pilot figures to be painted in overall orange and slipped into two very generic seat clumps slapped onto a floor and affixed to the fuselage half. You really need the pilot figures to fill up the very sparse 60's Hasegawa cockpit - unless you want to go to town with scratchbuilding virtually everything else from scratch. In the absence of any specific information I used Humbrol US Medium Grey for the cockpit, medium green seat cushions and red head rest. I also used some old spare pieces of plastic, carved to size to replicate instrumentation consoles, but a fair bit of scratchbuilding is needed to bring this little hollow horse up to today's standard.

While painting and sprucing up the cockpit, and being a predominantly wheels up modeller, I affixed the gear doors to the main wheel bays on the one-piece underwing, themselves having a little bit of piping and structural detail within them. The gear doors need trimming and test fitting but once done they can be made to fit reasonably well. Unfortunately this didn't prevent small gaps that needed a touch of filler and sanding back, remembering there are raised lines to be careful of (especially if like me you are looking to do a natural metal version later).

The cockpit floor and seats were affixed to the starboard fuselage half, test fitting revealed some alignment tabs on the underside of the floor to assist this process, before dropping the pilot figures into the seat. From other reports a bit of weight is needed to prevent tail sitting. Then it was trapping the painted burner can within the fuselage and affixing the halves together. They fit quite nicely although needed some sanding of the join lines.

The wing comes in a lower piece and two upper halves to be installed into the belly cavity of the aircraft. A test fit revealed some very minor flash that needed removing to ensure the wing affixed together properly and installation on the fuselage was very good for a kit this age. Likewise the tailplanes, although you do need to ensure the right dihedral when drying, and later the nose cone fits quite well, but still benefits from the obligatory blend-in sanding.

The underside air brake has been provided to only be deployed in the open position, however, putting this piece on its back and slicing off the excess plastic around the obvious border will achieve an excellent fit, with the obvious test fitting and sanding afterwards. The canopy fitted superbly, surprisingly, and then the underwing drop tanks were added to finish off construction. Just be wary that there is a supporting strut added to tank that joins the wing, so its advisable to double check the locating holes on the tank are on the correct side.

Colour Schemes:

There is only one overall white example based at Ashiya from 13th training group provided in the kit. Although these are also finished in natural metal [as was explained in the instructions], the exact version the kit supposedly replicates was always gloss white overall. My reference sources seem to dispute this, as the same emblems on 800+ coded aircraft can be seen in black and white photographs, clearly a natural metal finish (World Aircraft Information files). The boxart examples are not reflected in the instructions or on the decal sheet as there is no red (ie: day-glo orange) to be painted and the fin flashes are yellow, as opposed to white on the box. The side of the box also shows a natural metal version but this is not covered as an actual subject by the kit. So you do need to do some research. If you want to do a speculative camouflage, some aircraft were finished in a two-tone green and grey disruptive camouflage pattern, almost like a USAF aggressor scheme, which was on www.combataircraft.com (under trainers)

Decals:

Made in Japan and now quite yellowed with age so I was apprehensive in using them for this project. Roundels, fin flashes, serials, danger triangles, large number code and a couple of wing panel decals are all that are supplied. There is no stencilling and the instructions are not overly helpful with placement of the decals, you have to interpret them from the drawings, and the decals themselves are not numbered. As mentioned above there are different colours on the sheet to what is on the box to what the decal sheet indicates, so research is a must. The decals are matt, not in good colour register (although I acknowledge their age) and look to be of medium thickness. That's all I can tell you because they completely and utterly disintegrated and were totally unusable, so I had to use spare decals. I didn't replicate a historically accurate T-1A but I did manage to put on a grey wing walk similar to the decal sheet, 846 from large numbers on the F-15DJ decal sheet which was excellent to have in the pile, and a couple of small yellow dragons which fit the bill perfectly on the tail fin!

Accuracy:

Unfortunately this is the only game in town, even after so many years, so accuracy is a bit of a moot point if you want this aircraft. The basic shape and outline look quite good but the aircraft is over scale in measurements a little bit. It lacks detail, particularly on the surface, but it isn't too bad and I was pretty happy with it overall.

Overall Recommendation:

This is one of those kits you can't help but recommend because it is a simple build that goes together very well, is reasonably accurate and is the only game in town. Just bear in mind that if you pick up a kit as old as mine then you will have to source some aftermarket decals or make do, as I did, with your spares. Nice old kit!

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