The Nakajima J5N 天雷 (Tenrai, Heavenly Thunder) was a Japanese prototype twin-engined fighter, developed specifically for intercepting the B-29 bomber. It was based on the earlier J1N, with 6 prototypes build. Four single seaters and two twin seaters. Two where captured (コ·J5-3 and コ·J5-6) and brought back to the United States. Currently only the aft fuselage, fin, a left wing panel and some fuel cells remain.
I always had, and still have, a soft spot for obscure prototypes. The J5N was on my wish list for longer, but the A+V were elusive. So when Ushi models produced a fresh kit, I bought it immediately. I build the Ki-94-I earlier, and that was a joy to build. The kit comes in a combination of cast resin and 3d print.
The casts are of very high quality with little to no bubbles or deformations. The prints are good as well, however the printing layers are visible when looking closely, so a sanding is required. The details on the engines is quite low, but they won’t be too visible. Masks and a instrument panel decal are included, which is always nice.
I started with the cockpit, which consists of only a few parts. The nose is printed as a single piece, which makes paining the, very nice, side wall details quite finicky. The canopy is vacuum formed, and is a huge improvement over the one provided in the Ki-94-I kit. However the laser cuts on my masks are not full, and when cutting them myself, they don’t appear to fit too nicely.
The seatbelts where scratch-built from some masking tape and thin copper wire. I also added a reflective glass pane to the sights from some left-over canopy. Getting the cockpit inside the nose required some bending, but when in place, all fit perfectly.
All prototypes had slight differences in armament and wing shape, and the Ushi kit provides options for the prototypes 1 to 4; the single seaters. Information however is quite scarce for this type, and the photographs blurry. I opted for for the 3th aircraft, which i thought was the most interesting looking with the 4 upward firing cannons. I kept the wing extensions. They are ahistorical, but looked cool.
As far as i know, there is no official record of the colour of the prototypes. Photographs do show a clear demarcation between the dark upper side, and light lower side. The upper side is very likely D1 or D2 green. The underside might be C1 or C2 experimental orange, or it might be a regular J3 grey. I think the orange is plausible, and looks the most interesting, so i opted for that. No pre-mixed blend exists, so I just made my own of Tamiya paints. I don’t know the exact proportions, I just added paints until it looked decent.
I did opt to create the navigation lights. This was done by cutting out the space and filling it with UV curing clear resin. This was then sanded and polished back to shape. The wheel wells are quite bare, but i opted to keep them like this. I spent way to much time with trying to mix a nice Aotake shade, but the paint came out, well, poor.
In the end, i think the plane came out quite decent. not my best work, not my worst.
