Tamiya 61038 - 1/48 Kawanishi N1K1-J Type 11-Koh Shiden WWII  [61038]

Concerning the Kawanishi N1K1-Ja Shiden Type 11

Evolving from Kawanishi N1K1 "Kyofu" floatplane, the Imperial Japanese Navy's N1K1-J Shiden had an original pedigree among WW2 landplane fighters of the world. In January 1942, the Kawanishi Aircraft company started adaption of the Kyofu into a land based fighter, strictly as an exclusive venture. This task ended up being quickly formally authorized in designation N1K1-J, utilizing the first prototype flying in December 1942.
The airframe ended up being basically the just like its predecessor, with main landing gear and tail wheel changing the floats. Instead of the Kyofu's Mitsubishi Kasei engine, a far more compact and effective Nakajima Homare motor, a far more compact and powerful Nakajima Homare motor ended up being installed. Exemplary performance and superb maneuverability ended up being achieved making use of this motor, nevertheless it created severe problems.

So that you can utilize every one of the available energy in the motor, a sizable diameter propeller ended up being needed. This required unusually long principal landing gear feet, because of the midwing configuration. This caused difficulties in the landing gear retraction system. Kawanishi engineers been able to resolve the problem by presenting telescopic primary landing gear feet. The complex gear system and unreliability for the engine, plagued the N1K1-J throughout its job, until the introduction of this enhanced, low-wing N1K2-J Shiden-Kai. About 1,000 N1K1-J fighters were produced and had been active round the Philippine Islands, Formosa, Okinawa and within the Japanese Island of Honshu.