Starting another painfully slow build - an A6M2-N Rufe floatplane in 1/72. One thing I cannot nail down: All of the photos of models show the boarding ladder attached to the right rear side of the aircraft and the main float. I haven’t been able to find any photos of an actual Rufe with the ladder, and am wondering if the ladder was used on either side - because I have a 1/72 Japanese pilot figure I can pose getting into the cockpit from the lefthand side.
Well you should think in nautical terms here as the RUFE is a seaplane. Left is port and right starboard as for the Rufe they were usually tied to a dock with the nose pointing to open water and thus the boarding ladder would be on the right. But that also depended on what side of the dock it was tied to if it was tied up to the port side the ladder was on the right if it was on the starboard side it was on the left. Now if it was on the dolly the ladder would either be on the left or the right as pilots usually were usually a pretty superstituous lot. So all in all you can put the ladder whereever you want.