Review of the Yokosuka P1Y1 Attack Bomber Ginga (Frances) from Hasegawa
by Hans Weijand
The box contains 11 trees including 8 light grey trees, 2 clear plastic trees and 1 nylon tree. Instruction sheet is quite clear and a decal sheet is provided for two aircraft; one of the 262nd Attack Squadron / 762nd Naval Flying Group and one of the 761st Naval Flying Group.
The cockpit looks convincing, it includes two seats and the usual boxes, decals for the instrument panels are included. Watch out for the bulkhead behind the pilot seat as it is partly clear. The underside of the cockpit floor is the ceiling of the bomb bay. After glueing the cockpit floor to the inside of the fuselage there is a gap between this inside and the cockpit floor. You could fill it with a strip of plasticard or something like that, I didn’t since you hardly see the gap after glueing the fuselage together. I painted the fuselage inside, the cockpit and the bombardier station Humbrol H 86 Matt Light Olive. The kit includes two bombs, the shape of which is rather dubious, it is better to use the 800 kg bomb that comes with the Tamiya 1/72 Seiran. The bomb-aimer/gunner-position could do with a little detailling, so I added a magazine to the nose-canon. You can also add straps to the seats. When glueing the two fuselage-halves together take care of the area in front of the cockpit and the bomb-bay since these are rather weak. The bomb-bay-door on my Frances did not fit well. As it is made of one part with the possibility of cutting it in four parts. I did the last mentioned option. I glued the rear doors in closed position and the large ones in open position. This version used the fixed tailwheel, presumably to ease production so use part B8 and glue it in place before painting the model instead of parts B2 and B3. The last mentioned parts are more apropriate for the prototype and early production examples.
The wing consists of two halves and are well detailed. Before glueing these together first glue the parts A3and A4 in their place to which part of the undercarriage is fitted. After glueing the wings to the fuselage you’ll notice a gap between the fuselage and the undersurface of the wing. You can fill these with the apropriate stuff. The undercarriage consists of four parts and fits very tight in its place. I painted the undercarriage Aluminium and added a brakeline from a piece of electric wire. The engine nancelles are seperate and consist of five parts. The engines are very well done and are to be fitted with nylon bushes located between engine and front boss, so you can fit the propeller after the model is finished. Paint the inside of the engine nancelles and the undercarriage bays also H 86 Matt Light Olive and the engines Dark Grey and dry brush them with Aluminium.
After attaching the main wings, tailplanes, engines and various antennae and leaving them to dry, the masked-off cockpit transparencies were added. When you add the glazed parts of the nose, first do some dry-fitting. Plug the under carriage bay, bomb bay with kitchen tissue and tape covered with Maskol. The tail wheel bay and the engine nancelles only need to be plugged with kitchen tissue.Now you can start painting.
For the uppersurface I used Xtracolor Japanese WWII Navy Green (X353) and for the undersurfaces Humbrol 56 Aluminium. Since the Xtracolor Navy Green is glossy you can applie the decals without a coat of gloss varnish. Some varnish is only used at the undersurfaces. The engine nancelles are painted Satin Black or a mix of 3 parts Dark Blue and 1 part Black. The decals are a bit thick but they snuggle down very well with a little Microsol (Red label) from Microscale. I especially liked the yellow markings for the wing leading edge. After having applied the decals I gave the whole aircraft a coat of Matt varnish from Humbrol. After this has dried you can peel off the masking from around the canopy and nose glazing and the several bays.
Now you can glue the undercarriage in its place which goes easy and you don’t need much glue. After this put the undercarriage doors and the large bomb bay doors in place. And don’t forget the nose cannon. Having fitted the propellers, which I painted Tamiya XF10 Flat Brown with Aluminium spinners, the model was finished. And a beauty it is, in my opinion it certainly ranks among planes like the Mosquito and the Ju-188.