After the sad demise of my Diels Val at the hands (or rather paws) of Pickles I needed a new model to put my Voodoo 25/Zombie setup in, so after much deliberation decided to build a 1/20 scale model of the Mitsubishi Ki 15 "Kamikaze" which hit the headlines in 1937 when became the first Japanese built aircraft to fly from Tokyo to Europe. I think it is a very pretty aircraft, and liked the silver and blue colour scheme. The real plane was quite small, so 1/20 scale made it a very similar size to the 1/24 scale Val it was replacing. Wingspan is 23 inches
Fuselage construction is conventional keel and formers, as you can see here. The wing was set up so the outer panels have 9 degrees of dihedral (only about 1 degree more than scale) plus 3 degrees on incidence on the bottom of the root ribs (tailplane at zero).
Wheel spats are always vulnerable to heavy landings, so I fitted a beefed up version of the torsion spring setup I used on the Val. This time the length of the torsion spring was shorter, and the gauge of wire heavier.
I also fitted ply location tongues instead of balsa, as these had not lasted long on the Val. The angle of the tubes incorporated in the spats was just to get the pivot point right at the back - the slight radius meaning I could not run the wire up the back of the spat vertically.
Here is the spat at rest, held against the wing by the spring
And here it is pushed back.
The model is covered in white Esaki tissue. Tailplane was increased 10% linear, but otherwise the outlines are accurate to the drawings I was using. The rudder is hinged but the tailplane is one piece. Note the split cowling to allow access to the motor and controller.
The model was airbrushed as usual with enamels thinned with dope thinners, my silver of choice being Xtracolour RLM Silber. I think the sunbursts under the wingtips look very attractive, and these were done by spraying on the gloss white, then masking them while the silver was sprayed. The red portion was simply cut from painted decal film, and applied over the white background. The lettering is also cut from painted decal film and applied one letter at a time.
The small black lettering you can see is done with home made decals - the clear carrier film disappearing pretty well over the silver finish. All up weight came to 55 grams.
You can read about trimming and flying on the 2009 Indoor Nationals page, but suffice to say, the model proved nice and stable, and needed just a touch of noseweight and trim tab bent down on the left hand wing to give steady left hand circuits. The power setting on the Zombie that I had set for the Val proved perfect for this model as well, so all I fiddled with was the timer.
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