Shipbucket

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Something to compete with Eswube's (really Naixoterk's) own Curtiss P-36/40 family

After a two-week drawing hiatus (only thing that really came was pre-made drawings available via Dropbox), this right here I made within a single day, while doing homework.

The army edition of the famous Mitsubishi A6M Zero, Nakajima's own Ki-43 Hayabusa was nimble and easy to operate and fly, but was fragile and was easy to catch on fire due to a lack of self-sealing fuel tanks and armor, which would be rectified in the last variant.
Despite so, it would carry both air branches as it shot down more Allied aircraft than any other Japanese aircraft, and most of the IJAAS' flying aces scored their kills while flying it.
Many of these would be used in kamikaze operations, but it would be used during the war by Manchukuo and Thailand and postwar by Indonesia as one of the first aircraft in their air force and both Taiwan and PR China during the Chinese Civil War.

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In your dreams. ~ Yae Miko
報園-872 (方義鑑銃)
Patriotic Presentation Number 872, Q-102 (A6M3-32 captured in Buna, New Guinea)

Excellent work

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It's a nice effort but...

First of all, why have You made two completely separate (in geometrical terms) drawings - for Ki-43-I and Ki-43-II/III?
It was the same plane all the time, just with different engine and elements of equipment.



Am I right to suspect, that You've used two completely unrelated sets of plans? (or just one set, but from 'Squadron-Signal Aircraft in Action' series? )
If I may suggest something for the future: when drawing an aircraft that had multiple versions, choose one version (preferably the one that You have best sources) and only make relevant (for other versions) changes to it, remembering that drawings from various sources could be inaccurate, distorted during scaling, copying etc. etc.

Another thing is that the hatch in the rear fuselage (behind the cockpit) was actually present only on the left side of the fuselage.

(Plus there are some details I don't like styllistically, but that's secondary thing.)

Here’s the source set I used. Is that the source you asked, because idk if they made a Japanese translation of it.
Also good game me. Looks like I may need to redo that hatch, but that wouldn’t be that much of a hassle.

For what you asked, they might’ve increased the overall size marginally, as the engines (Ha-25 to Ha-115) might’ve upset the CoG/CoM for the Ki-43-II/III, so they might’ve had to do something with it and tune it up.

_________________
In your dreams. ~ Yae Miko
報園-872 (方義鑑銃)
Patriotic Presentation Number 872, Q-102 (A6M3-32 captured in Buna, New Guinea)

Lol, these aren't from Squadron-Signal. They old publications quite often tended to show different versions of same aircraft not really matching in the places where they should.

With a change of engine it's completely normal that occasionaly the nose part is slightly modified and the like. But above I provided a comparison with contours of Your Ki-43-I (blue+red) and Ki-43-II (dark green+light green) in false colors superimposed on each other and they are completely different - with fuselage of -I being some 12-15cm deeper and longer, different wing and... well, essentialy everything different.

And below is the Ki-43-I (3.) and Ki-43-II (4.) from Your source - first each of them separately, and on the bottom they are superimposed on each other. There are minor differences due to (original) publication technology, print etc. etc. but generally they match everywhere except the engine itself and some minor details (like wing flaps).