Not the best pictures... Sorry

Tamiya 1:48 Hyakushiki Shite III "Dinah"
Revised Feb 8th 1996

Interior
Interior detail is very nice. Although the front instrument panel is very shallow with little to no detail on the faces. No decal for the instrument panel. Various items are glued to the sides of the cockpit to give nicely raised detail. Overall very nice, the only bad point being the instrument panel

Figures
The kit comes with two figures that are exactly the same with the rear passenger getting a hand held camera. Nicely engraved but the pose is of a person sitting with hands on the knees. Some cleanup needed

Wheel Wells
Side wall raised detail but none on the top. No front or rear walls. Not familiar with the plane so I don't know if this is accurate. Landing gear also incomplete with a strut going nowhere. Assembly was fine but some work will be needed before it can be displayed as accurate. No instructions for building the plane with wheels up. Rear wheel well has the doors moulded open. Surgery will be needed to close all the doors

Tires
Front tires are two piece items completely round with no bulge or tread. Rear tire is moulded onto the rear landing gear

Props
Two sets of propellers and spinners provided in the kit. Different variants? Nicely moulded, little to no cleanup needed

Engine
The engine detail is very nice but is barely seen. With some detail painting and washes this can look very good. Any more detail here would be wasted unless you want to make the engine covers removable. The panels that surround the engine fit beautifully. Engine exhaust could look better being drilled out but this would be a delicate task

Painting
Instructions for the exterior come with only AS numbers (Tamiya new spray cans). The interior colour has to be mixed. Only Tamiya colours referenced

Windows
Cockpit windows are an excellent fit after a little filing of the edges. The raised portions of the window framing is very slight and looks to scale. All the square windows needed filing to get them to fit

Kit Fit and Finish
Fit and finish varies through the entire kit. None of the problems are major but not up to the Tamiya standard, in my opinion. The wings mostly lined up except for the gun ports which were misaligned by 1mm. This should be puttied up and a new one drilled. The wing root on top was perfect and no filler was needed. However the front leading edge needed some filler. Also the seam along the length of the fuselage needed filler. Some detail was lost doing this. The recessed panel lines are fine and very nice

Decals
Nice decals but yellow and solid red decals aren't opaque enough. rest of the decals are fine. No trimming of decals needed. Used Micro-Sol but decals didn't snuggle into recess'. Have heard rumours of Tamiya decals self destructing. In this kit the decals were fine although I have had another kits decals break apart

Conclusion
Overall a nice looking kit that was actually very simple to put together. Can not comment on the accuracy but Tamiya is good at what they do. Disappointed with the wheel wells. Total time would be under 10 hours which may be even overestimating. Majority of time taken to paint the plane, figures and masking off the windows

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