This is FineMolds’ 1/48th kit of the Nakajima Kikka (Orange Blossom) which I built for the Early Jets Group Build. I noticed that I still need to attach a small pitot tube to the right wing but she’s 99.99% done and I’m too lazy to go back and retake the photos.
I don’t think the aotake (metallic blue/green) well wheels are right now but I’m not going to repaint them. Plus I like the contrast better!
I was amazed at how small the aircraft was, about 2/3rds the size of a Me-262. Here she is next to a Ki-43 which was a pretty small fighter herself:
I was just about reply asking if you could have added some details from an existing ME262 kit, or some resin/PE stuff, until I read your last sentence. The thing nearly exactly like a ME262, it’s amazing to see it’s like 2/3 scale.
Gene, good idea on using parts from a Me-262 but I’m not sure how much was in common from the two aircraft. From what I understand the Germans shipped the Japanese a working jet engine but the U-boat that was bringing blueprints for the engine and the Me-262 was sunk. So the Japanese took the engine they had apart, figured out how it worked and back-engineered their own models. Their first jet engines were smaller than the German ones so the Kikka ended up smaller. I think the only thing Nakajima had of the 262 were a few photos so they designed the Kikka to look simular but the insides were pretty much entirely different.
The oddest thing to me is like the 262 the Kikka was supposed to be a bomber. It was designed to carry one 500kg or 800kg bomb. I can’t imagine what such a heavy weight would have done to the preformance of the aircraft.
Nakajima also designed a second fighter along the same lines, the Ki-201 Karya (Fire Dragon) which was slightly larger than the 262. The first Karyas were slanted to enter production in December 1945.
As far as I know there is no model available of the Karya (I guess one could modify a 262???) and this is the only model of the Kikka around in 1/48th, I am not sure about 1/72nd.
Nice work…looks aesome! I have this kit and as soon as Im done my twin stang Im gonna build my Kikka. Just a silly question for ya...did yours come with English directions? Mine sure didnt! Shouldnt be a problem in building it but maybe some color info will elude me, since my Japanese is a little rusty these days…lol. Again, great job and giving me incentive to buid mine…Len
Len- sorry it took a couple of days to get back with you but my computer is down so I have to post from work. I lost the instructions some time ago but as far as I remember there wasn’t much in the way of English at all. There weren’t that many parts so I assembled her from just looking at the pictures. I found a couple of other builds at Hyperscale and Modeling Madness that I used as reference as well at the box top. There doesn’t seem to be much information on the aircraft so I just went with the default paint on her:
Interior- White Ensign Nakajima Interior Green (almost the same as RAF Interior Green)
Bottom- Tamiya Japanese Navy Grey (this looks closer to the Nakajima color to me)
Topside- Testor’s Model Master Japanese Green
This was my best match-ups - since the Nakajima colours are a little different from the Mitsubishi ones. If you need the exact paint numbers let me know, as I said I’m posting from work and don’t have them with me now.
The wheel wells were probably just natural metal but for some reason I painted them aotake and after I did so I liked the contrast so I left them that way.
