Howdy folks! I bought the recent boxing of this ancient kit for my birthday- unbeknownst to me, the kit and I were both "produced" in the same year: 1973. Ironic, huh? Anyways, being that the kit isn't super detailed, I decided to close her up and have her in flight. She was entered in the Orlando Modelpalooza and ended up being the only plane displayed as such. Since the whole point of the Raiden was to climb fast and dive fast, I put her in a position of pulling into a climb. Enjoy!

Looks very cool. Good job on the model and nice idea about the "flying" configuration.

I wanted to do something similar, but the lack of pilot figures has stopped me so far. Maybe I will do it with my new 1/32 Hasegawa Bf 109 K. This kit includes a pilot.

Thanks for sharing

Looks good. Any challenges putting gears up? The pilot figure looks really good.
Allen

Very nice!

That is a great job you did. It is always fun to see "not a Zero" Japanese aircraft. The Raiden is such a good looking plane I think, like a P-47 that was built to go through the water. Which I guess many did
It is also cool to see it in a in flight pose. I look forward to see more of your work.

-Derek

Hi guys!

Thanks for the kind words!

Jesper, I know your pain. I wanted to do another flying rig with my 1/72 Hasegawa Hellcat, but no pilot. Instead, I'll have to "ground it" and try with something else that has a pilot.

Allen, the doors were surprisingly easy as the kit actually came with optional closed doors on the rare chance that the builder would want the plane to be in flight. I think it was that option that put the thought into my head. The hard part was getting the right angle of attack for the plane and keeping it steady for the time it took the epoxy to cure (it said "five minutes" but wasn't truly cured for a couple hours).

Derek, I've got some Zeros in the pipeline too, but I promise to put some other stuff up first. I'm currently working on a Shiden...