#UnboxingDay ~ Tora Tora Tora

Billy Riley, 20 January 2022 ~ #UnboxingDay

I am a keen model enthusiast. I recall making them with my father back in the 70s but I grew up and pursued other means of entertainment – mainly woman and booze.

However – a few years ago I got back into the hobby and even kitted myself out (eventually) with a spray booth and airbrush for painting.

I was gobsmacked with the improvements to the kits. Of course prices are up but so is the quality. There’s a whole range too – you can stay low budget or go high end. There’s fun for everyone.

Anyway – onto this. I remember my dad making a Mitsubishi Zero way back in the day – likely 1:72 scale. I also recall him painting it white – which I really liked. So, when I saw this dual kit show up, it was a must buy.

Box Art

The box art displays 2 Zeros – one (A1-155) flown by Lt Cdr Shigeru Itaya of the Akagi Fighter Squadron and was part of the first attack wave and the other (B1-151) was flown by Lt Fusata Iida of the Soryu Fighter Squadron and part of the second attack wave.

click images to enlarge

Box – Sides

The sides of the box show the 12 different aircraft schemes you can build with this kit…that’s quite a lot for a single kit to provide…but this is a Limited Edition I guess.

 

What’s in the box

It’s quite a deep box and for good reason – there are, after all, 2 1:48 scale kits in here.

 

Well, for a start, there’s a colour instruction manual ( I do like colour instruction manuals – it just gives off a feeling of quality)

 

The manual includes blurb on that day of infamy

 

It obviously contains instructions for building – with colour sections showing where the PE parts go

 

It has colour call outs for the different aircraft paint and insignia schemes available with additional info on each aircraft

 

The back of the manual has the positions of all the decals 

 

There’s a PE fret containing all the various PE parts. For anyone wondering, PE is “Photo Etch” and are small metal pieces, often coloured where required (for example on the cockpit sections). So it’s often required (not always) to sand down the plastic part to get rid of the injection moulding already present, have a flat surface and place the PE in place.

They are excellent and allow parts of your model to “pop” and add some authenticity to the detailing – though they don’t often get bundled with a kit and have to be bought separately.

 

You can’t see this very well, but this is masking. These help cover various bits for painting (often the cockpit glass). These are excellent and don’t always come with a kit and have to be purchased separately.

 

The decals. Often these are hit and miss in a model kit. Lots of people buy after market stuff – better quality decals. I’ve never bothered to be honest – but be aware that some older kits especially have pretty poor, thick decals that don’t leave your model looking very good.

 

Onto the sprues and here you can see the wings

 

Some nice detail on these

 

The fuselage

 

Miscellaneous sections

 

The glass sections

 

And that’s it.

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Thanks for joining this month’s #UnboxingDay with the Armchair Dragoons and we hope you enjoyed our recon of our recent acquisitions.  You can always leave us your feedback in our #UnboxingDay thread, or in the comment area on this article, below.
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