1:32 A6M2 Zero

The fighter that found no match in the first year of the war

In December 1941 the A6M2 was the main type on the decks of Japanese aircraft carriers, and it was its machines that opened the attack on Pearl Harbor. It had exceptional range for its day, thanks to which land-based units from Rabaul and from Lae could operate over New Guinea at distances Allied commanders did not consider possible. It was with the Tainan Air Group that most of the most successful Japanese fighter pilots of the first half of the war served.

A tail code instead of a squadron number

Japanese naval aviation did not paint a unit code on the fuselage in the European manner but used a marking on the vertical tail: a letter or a pair of letters for the parent ship or group and after them a three-figure number for the particular machine. A horizontal bar above the code gave the pilot's position in the flight. Early carrier machines carried a light gray-green finish and red suns without a white border; as soon as the fighting moved over the islands, a dark green upper surface was added and the markings received a white outline so that they stayed legible.

What the set covers

The canopy of the Zero is long, with rounded panels and several thin frames that are badly served by tape. Cut parts make short work of it and the edge stays equally thick along the whole frame. The inner parts belong on the frame as seen from the cockpit, which is useful with the canopy slid open.

It works well to spray the frames before the glazing is glued into the fuselage. You then have free access from every side and there is no risk of paint drifting into a finished interior.