The recently released book "Genda's Blade" is a history of the 343 Kokutai. It was the Japanese Navy's Squadron of aces and some of the finest Japanese pilots was part of this group of elite. One thing they all had on common was that they all flew the excellent Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-kai (George).

This particular sheet covers four of those planes. All were painted dark green upper with bare metal undersurfaces. Kawanishi's green was distinct from those of other makers and we are fortunate that White Ensign's Colourcoats range of new Japanese aviation enamels has this color in its range. For those who wish an FS number, it is close to FS 34092.

These are designed for the Hasegawa kit but there is no reason why most of these would not fit another if you chose. There are both 1/48 and 1/72 markings provided. A nice touch is that the white number markings are duplicated in case you want to double them up to assure they are opaque.

First is A-15 as flown by Lt. Naoshi Kanno. Kanno's plane has two yellow fuselage bands and a barely visible aircraft number.

A-11 was flown by CPO Shoichi Sugita. His plane has a single fuselage band and no aircraft number.

B-03 is the mount of  WO Hiroshi Ohara with a single fuselage band and the number 03.

Finally, B-17 of LA Ikuji Matsumara. His aircraft has no fuselage band and a barely visible number 17. These numbers, when used, were painted inside the fuselage hinomaru.

A really excellent sheet and I do like the dual scale idea as that makes the sheet twice as useful.

Review copy courtesy of YellowHammer Models

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