Tamiya 1/72 Kawanishi N1K1-Ja Shiden Type 11

TAMIYA 1:72 KAWANISHI N1K1-JA SHIDEN TYPE 11

Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster) (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted: 30 April 2008

Kit Details:

Tamiya 1/72 Scale war bird collection #68 - item 60768 ** 900 - Kawanishi N1K1-Ja Shiden Type 11

Aircraft History:

(yes lazy me has pinched the excellent history from Jon's review!) - In short the N1K1-J Shiden was a private venture by the Kawanishi Aircraft Firm for a land based fighter to be developed from its already successful float plane fighter the Kyofu or "Mighty Wind". The N1K1 Kyofu float plane already an excellent design showed much promise and capability if it could be converted into a land based fighter. From this the Shiden or "Violet Lightning" was born and the resemblance between the two was unmistakable. For starters a Homare 11 radial engine was chosen to replace the Mitsubishi Kasei engine that had been used in the Kyofu and a larger propeller was needed to get the most available horsepower out of the engine. Since such a large propeller was needed this required a mid wing design. This of course resulted in the extra long landing gear which were needed to give enough ground clearance for the said propeller.

The first Shiden prototype flew in December 1942 and despite some problems such as propeller torque, poor visibility out of the cockpit during taxiing (from its high sit due to the tall landing gear) and the engine feeling underpowered it was said that the Shiden handled beautifully in flight and showed great room for improvement. The Shiden being an entirely new aircraft had a couple of advantages over its contemporary the A6M5 Zero. For one it had a faster top speed of around 364 mph and it also had combat flaps which greatly improved the handling and maneuverability. The Japanese Navy received its first Shiden on July 24 1943 and Kawanishi were given the go-ahead to continue developing what was to become the Type 11 model. (If I'm not mistaken the Homare 21engine was the powerplant of this version) 300 of these were produced and accepted by the Navy in October 1944.

The Shiden Type 11 was well armed too, with two 7.7 mm machine guns in the cowling and four 20 mm cannons in the wings, one set into the wing and another housed underneath in a gondola. Unfortunately for the Japanese military though, many Shidens suffered from engine troubles and landing gear problems. It wasn't uncommon for a Shidens landing gear to collapse during a landing which couldn't have been very comforting to its pilots either! About 1,000 or so Shidens were eventually produced and many were sidelined due to mechanical problems. Still in the hands of a good pilot the Shiden could spell trouble for an unexpecting Hellcat or Corsair pilot. Though overshadowed by its much improved successor the Shiden-Kai, the Shiden was nevertheless an important stepping stone which helped pave the way for a better aircraft.

The Kit:

Inside the sturdy top opening box was a single sprue in a plastic bag, containing 48 light grey injection molded parts with engraved panel lines and excellent surface detail. Initially I thought this was one of Tamiya's older kits as the parts - although very nice - conveyed a lesser quality than the Mustang kit I have. But still looks very nice on the sprue. In my example the decal sheet was not bagged separately - floating loosely with the sprue although appears to have not suffered the journey. There is a canopy and gunsight as the clear parts on a separately bagged sprue, and a pair of poly caps are also included separately bagged.

Instructions:

The instructions are a fold out strip in roughly 10 pages around A5 size each (not dissimilar to Italeri). There is a brief overview and a bit of information for the modeller as usual which kick off the instructions in several languages. 8 easy to follow assembly steps are supplied, most of which have smaller diagrams to aid in assembling smaller components. There follows one four-view diagram for colours and markings for the aircraft. I presume even though four examples are in the kit, they all have the same colour scheme and similar decalling, because only side-views are provided for the remaining examples showing decal placement applicable to the version. Obviously therefore, if you build version B C or D then you need to be swapping the appropriate side-views with version A - make sense? Tamiya paint range is quoted throughout the instructions and it took me a little while to spot the English names of the colours in the top corner of page 2, although the box side does give an additional colour chip to give you a clue. After the last instruction step there is a short paragraph about painting the aircraft which is interesting to note (particularly comments about underside gray and natural metal).

Construction:

Starting in the rather well detailed cockpit for this scale, there is a cockpit floor which has side consoles with molded detail, rudder pedals and some other boxes and detail. Onto this is a control stick, which really needs to go on first, because the bucket seat overlaps over the top of it. The instrument panel has raised surface detail which I sanded down as I opted to be a cheapskate and go for the decal. Also on the decal sheet is seat belts which I applied to the painted bucket seat. Forward and rear bulkheads complete the sub assembly. This was all painted in IJN Cockpit Green and the boxes, instrument panel and side consoles painted in gloss black per the instructions, with detail picked out with a little dry brushing. There is also a gun sight which is supplied as a clear piece and this was painted per instructions and the cockpit sub assembly set aside to dry.

The fuselage halves were affixed together with the interior sidewalls, that contain structural detail, painted in cockpit green. Once dry the cockpit assembly was fed in from the bottom and the alignment tabs make it nigh impossible to get it wrong. It was a a beautiful fit.

The five part motor assembly was then worked on with an engine block and cylinder block affixed to a rear exhaust manifold plate. There is a small poly cap which is not cemented, but trapped between the front crank case and engine block. These were painted up in mainly a mixture of "dirty aluminium" with black streaks to represent oil marks and the crank case painted in Hellblau as suggested in the instructions. It pays to do this assembly for the next step.

The instructions advise to fit the single underwing piece to the fuselage which extends to the nose area. The fit is snug but I realised quickly that the nose area will easily prize apart if left to its own devices. This is where the sub assembly of the engine came into play as affixing this to the nose effectively allowed it to double up as a nose clamp and ensure the underwing piece dried beautifully. In fact you don't need to glue this sub assembly as it should sit there and hold the nose together nicely. I would advise not cementing the engine at this stage as you will note further below. In hindsight, if you hadn't followed the instructions to the letter and built the engine sub assembly then you could theoretically just use the exhaust plate as the "clamp" and then attach the rest of the engine onto this after.

The upper wing halves and tailplane assemblies went together without a hitch, you could be really nit picky and say that the most minor of gaps at the wing roots needed filling - although I really didn't bother.

The cowling is in one piece with the collar effect that curl out separate parts to glue on and these again fit nicely. This is where I found that not glueing the engine assembly earlier was a good idea! The engine assembly fits on the pin nicely but you can move it around a little - so if you don't glue it exactly in the precise spot then the collar cut out sections for the small exhaust pipes will not match up! I therefore recommend glueing the cowling sub assembly and the engine sub assembly basically at the same time so you can be sure it all fits nicely.

Everything else fits very well including the underwing cannons (and their separate muzzles), canopy, gear doors, tailwheel assembly and wing machine guns etc.

Colour Schemes:

There are four colour schemes to choose from in the kit, labelled A to D, each with JN (Japanese Navy) Green on upper surfaces and the first two having JN Grey undersurfaces while the last two have unpainted undersurfaces (ie: natural metal). I initially didn't pick up the undersides were different because I presumed that since only the sideviews were provided of the last three versions then they had the same colour scheme as the first one. The versions are listed as Japanese Navy, Tsukuba Fighter Group; Japanese Navy, Yokosuka Fighter Group and then both the last two as 341st Naval fighter group 402nd Fighter Squadron.

Decals:

Decals are provided on a small sheet with hinomarus and the yellow leading edge for the wings. The decals appeared a little thick on the sheet and with a satin finish. The colour register is sharp but I wasn't quite convinced they were spot on, the red in particular being just a touch dark.

Overall Recommendation:

I have to admit that when my workbench is up and running again and I have a room to use to build and store models, I really do like the idea of working on some short run stuff. Nothing is more satisfying than overcoming a few "fun" hobby challenges in putting together a project - you feel as if you have actually achieved something. But every now and then, you want a kit that just falls together - just to remind you also that the basic assembly and painting is all that is needed - especially when space or time is a premium. Well, in that vain this is definitely a winner of a kit. It was a delight to build, extremely well engineered and I can understand why some modellers say that once you build a decent tamiya kit it is hard to tackle "second best". Oh go for all those cliches "drop in a tube of glue and the kit comes out complete" - whatever you think suits this the best as this kit was a cinch. Of course the big let down is the price of Tamiya kits, but aside from that this is highly recommended.

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