![]() ![]() I do not collect models for their box art, but I know that that is something that others do. I stupidly didn’t get them all, but I did manage to get some of them, and one was the LS Judy! This included a number of LS and Farpro Japan kits. He had found a veritable treasure trove (to me) of really old kits that had been in stock since the store’s earlier days. A few months before one of London’s landmark hobby shops, McCormick’s Hobbies, closed its doors, I went in to find that the owner had been digging around in the basement. One of the odder and lesser-known kits is the old LS kit, in the most unusual scale of 1/75. Given the technical excellence and abilities of the Suisei, it’s no surprise that there has been a considerable number of kits, most of them by Japanese manufacturers. While this created more drag, it made up for it in simplicity and thus improved aircraft availability. Eventually, the D4Y3 was developed, and this used a Mitsubishi Kinsei radial engine. Sadly for the IJN, issues with the complex and cantankerous inline engine prevented the Suisei from reaching service in any numbers until the carriers from which it was designed to operate had been largely lost, and they operated from smaller carriers and land bases for the rest of the war. In this last role, its combination of range and speed, boosted by three solid fuel rockets for the terminal dive (D4Y4 variant only) made it a particularly terrifying and effective weapon. The Suisei proved to be a good and stable platform for dive-bombing, and was also used for recon and, eventually Kamikaze missions. Careful aerodynamic tailoring helped with this a lot as well the main armament of a 550lb (1000kg) bomb was carried in an enclosed bomb bay to improve drag. It was, in fact, faster than an A6M Zero, and by sacrificing armour and self-sealing tanks, the Suisei also had a range of nearly 1000 miles. Thanks to the slim profile of the engine and its high power output, the Suisei (Judy in the Allied reporting system) was extremely fast and long ranging. Its most distinguishing feature was its engine whereas every other IJN plane used some kind of air-cooled radial engine, the Suisei (Comet) was powered by an Aichi Atsuta engine, a liquid-cooled inline engine which was a copy of the German DB-601. The radical D4Y had been under design since 1938, and was very much unlike any other IJN aircraft fighter, bomber or recce type at the time. At the end of 1940, a new Yokosuka dive bomber made its first flight. However, the Japanese were never ones to rest on their laurels, and long before the “Day of Infamy” had issued a specification for a new naval dive bomber to replace the then-in-service D3A “Val”. Thus, the aircraft used at Pearl Harbour were all long-legged. ![]() This allowed carrier strike groups to launch attacks effectively “over the horizon”, minimizing the chances for defenders to be ready for the murderous sword slash that was being flung their way. ![]() To this end, the aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) were all designed to have ranges nearly unheard of in any other country. As a primarily naval power, Japan realized early on that the projection of airpower from aircraft carriers was going to be a lynchpin of their success in establishing, and maintaining, an empire spanning the vast area of the Pacific Ocean. ![]()
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