Kawasaki Ki-61-I-Tei 18th sentai Japanese Army Air Service 1944
Kawasaki Ki-61-I-Tei 55th sentai Japanese Army Air Service 1945
Kawasaki Ki-61-I-Tei 244th sentai Japanese Army Air Service 1945
Awesome! Loving it.
That last one looks like it belongs in a disco!
What model is that,It has a fixed tailwheel.
Ki-61-I-Tei
I think it’s one of the early ones, but not too sure…
our aircraft are from the 68th and 78th Sentai but i have no idea who flew them.
And they a retractable tailwheel.
It may yet be a later model maybee they got rid of the hydraulics etc to save weight.
I will have to ask Joe Picarella he will know.
According to my reference drawing:
Ki-61 Prototype: Retractable
Ki-61-I-Ko: Retractable
Ki-61-I-wces: Retractable
Ki-61-I-Otsu: Fixed
Ki-61-I-Hei: Fixed
Ki-61-I-Tei: Fixed
Beautiful pictures, as always…
I was wondering what the Japanese Air Force was thinking with this scheme…
Why on Earth camouflage the plane, then paint the tail bright red?
That’s the personal a/c of major Kobayashi. IIRC 2 of his airkills were credited by ramming.
There is a great book in Japanese and English on the 244th Sentai that defended Tokyo. It is published by Art Box and can be bought from arawasi.com, a great website for Japanese planes.