Am newbie here so I am attempting my first post in this community. Here it goes:
Mitsubishi G4M1 Isshikirikko Type 11 ("Betty")
4th Chutai, Kanoya Kokutai
Japanese Navy Air Force
Sasa Airfield, Davao
Mindanao, Philippines
January, 1942
Here is another addition to my WWII in the Philippines aircraft collection. This Tamiya Betty was built straight out of the box. Overall fit was very good except for some gaps that I encountered when installing the wheel wells to the lower wings. This was fixed with a few drops of CA and Mr. Surfacer 500. The rest of the assembly was straight forward.
I used my own mix of Mitsubishi Interior Green using Tamiya paints. The wheel wells were painted with silver and then lightly airbrushed with clear blue to simulate "aotake". The model was built in sub-assemblies and I left the landing gears, cowling, props, and other small parts aside to be attached towards the end. Masking the canopy and other clear parts were a challenge. I spent almost an entire day for this. I used a combination of Tamiya Masking Tape and Gunze's liquid mask.
Once the clear parts were installed, I sprayed the frames with Mitsubishi Interior Green. After considerable drying time, the entire model was sprayed with Mr. Surfacer 1000 to hide and blemish or sanding scratches during the assembly phase.
The paint guide called for Japanese Navy Light Grey for the underside but the most of the early G4M1s had natural metal undersides so I used Gunze Mr. Color No. 8 Silver. Then this was followed by the "kumogota" scheme for the uppersurface camo. I have my home brew mix of the kumogota brown using Mr. Color paints and I airbrushed this free hand. Then this was followed by Mr. Color # 124 (Mitsubishi Green) which was also applied free hand. The model was left to dry and afterwards prepped for decal application.
There was a problem with the kit "hinomarus" as they disintegrated and broke apart while being they were being removed from the backing paper. I decided to airbrush the hinomarus instead. The tail numbers faired better but I had to trim the letter "K" as it a was a oversized. The "359" came from mix of numbers that came with the decal sheet. The model was given a wash after the decals were set and I applied the chipping effect using a fine brush with Tamiya X-11. The exhaust stains were airbrushed using a mix of brown and black.
I attached the rest of the sub-assemblies, the last being the cowling and the propellers. I used stretched sprue for the aerials. Overall it was a good build and the finished model required a considerabe space in my display shelf.
The model depicts a G4M1 Betty with the 4th Chutai of the Kanoya Kokutai when it was stationed at Sasa Airifeld, Davao on January 1942. Originally based in Formosa, the Kanoya Kokutai's 4th, 5th and 6th Chutais were active over the Philippines. (The 1st, 2nd and 3rd Chutais were assigned in the Malayan operations and participated in sinking the Prince of Wales and the Repulse) On December 8, 1941 together with elements of the Takao Kokutai (also flying G4M1s) they hit the USAAF base at Iba Airfield in Zambales during the opening stages of the war.
Cheers,
