1:24 A6M2 Rufe

A fighter on floats

The Imperial Japanese Navy needed a fighter that could do without a concrete runway, and it got one by giving the carrier-based Zero a large central float and two auxiliary floats under the wings. A machine converted like this fought over the Aleutians and above all over the Solomon Islands, where it took off from sheltered bays before any airfields existed there at all. The cockpit stayed as long as on the land version, that is a glazed band from the windscreen to behind the pilot, divided by a row of thin bars.

Three sets of Japanese markings

The red discs on the wings and on the fuselage are treacherous for a decal: a large saturated circle laid on a green or gray base shows through and its edge tends to be visible. Sprayed through a mask it looks different, because the paint lies directly on the surface and the edge definitely does not lift. The set encloses three sets of masks for it and they can be used on the smaller markings as well.

Glass as long as a greenhouse

Glazing of this length masks badly by hand, because the bars are very narrow in proportion to the area and there are many of them. The cut parts are applied in two layers, to the outer side and to the reverse, so the frames do not stay transparent even when the cockpit is looked into open. Inside the package there are masks only; the kit of the floatplane and the paints have to be bought separately. Anyone intending to display the cockpit slid back will appreciate that the inner layer allows even the view down into the cockpit to be finished, where on a model this large almost everybody looks.