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In-box review of Sanka Mk.B from “The Sky Crawlers“


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“The Sky Crawlers” is an anime by director Mamuro Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, among others) that came to Japanese screens in early August of 2008. For the details, I’ll refer you to the WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE.

As soon as I saw the links by Dave in THIS THREAD, I knew I had to get these kits. :banana: I ordered them from HLJ.

So, today the first one arrived. The 1/48 kit of the Rostock F2B Sanka Mk.B by Fine Molds. The aircraft itself looks like a Shinden on steroids, with counter-rotating props (that really work via a little gear assembly! :thumbsup:) and in-flight refuelling capability (probe can be displayed deployed). I’ve read elsewhere that they wanted the aircraft to look like the pinnacle of prop-driven fighter design. Looking at the design o the planes, I think they succeeded.

Box-art (one of the most beautiful of its kind, I think):

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Sprue A, containing the upper wing halves and parts of the undercarriage:

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Sprue B, containing the lower wing halves, canards, rudders as well as a drop-tank that looks very “Me 109”-ish :lol: :

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Sprue C, containing the fuselage halves and fuselage parts:

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Sprue D, containing the engine assembly and propellers (of a pretty cool design).

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The transparencies...

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... that live up to their name. They’re quite thin and don’t distort all that much.

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Decals and painting instructions:

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Only one marking option for an aircraft of the Rostock Corporation Air Force, 262th Independent Fighter Unit, Yuichi Kannami (pilot’s name?) at Urisu Base.

Interestingly, a lot of the colours are given in RLM codes. And the decals are an interesting mix of English stencils, such as “No step” or “Armament” and German, such as “Reifendruck” (tire pressure), “Federbeindruck” (oleo pressure) or “Sauerstoff“(oxygen).

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Edited by ChernayaAkula
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The sprues are crisply moulded with no apparent flash or sink holes. The detail is delicately engraved all-round.

Detail of the rear fuselage:

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Fine Molds gives options for a hand-painted instrument panel as well for one using a decal. Pretty nifty!

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Part of the instructions showing the gear assembly that should allow for a working counter-rotating prop. Careful glueing advisable! :lol:

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The very nice instruction booklet also contains some technical background, both for the story a and for the real-world aircraft that influenced the design of the anime planes. However, it is in Japanese only. :( But there’s a nice drawing of two other planes that look rather cool.

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This looks like a very nice kit. :thumbsup: Major thumbs-up to Fine Molds for releasing kits like these. :banana:

Hope you liked my review! I'll post reviews of the 1/72 kits once I have them.

Edited by ChernayaAkula
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I received mine yesterday. Great job from FineMolds. :whistle:

Few weeks ago I received the 1/72 Sky Crawler kits from Bandai, review here: Linky!

I wonder if FineMolds is going to release any more from the series...?

Edited by Godfather95
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<...> but...wher did the guns go? :unsure:

The openings are next to the nose wheel. ;)

<....>

I wonder if FineMolds is going to release any more from the series...?

I hope so! The twin-boom aircraft looks rather cool! :woo:

senryu_s.jpg

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<...> are you gonna build and paint as per the instructions? or are you gonna make up your own paint scheme?

I think I'll build the 1/48 as the plane from the film. The markings and camo look pretty cool. One of the 1/72 kits will definitely be a whiffer.

Interesting airplane. It reminds me of the game called "crimson skies".
Yeah it looks kinda like a Devastator!!! Now that would be an interesting build!! anybody itching to scratch?

Crimson Skies rocks! :woo:

Have played the PC game umpteen times. Even got the books, which were rather cool.

Once I'll acquire some decent scratch-building skills ( whenever that may be ... :thumbsup:) I'll build several of them. The Devastator is pretty cool, but I really liked the Fairchild Brigand. My favourite fighter. Flew it whenever possible. Also liked the Curtiss Fury and Hughes Firebrand.

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Why do the translated names of Japanese sound so utterly dumb to my ears??

"The Sky Crawlers".............WTH!!!!

I hope it doesn't sound as lame in the original Japanese.

Cool model, though. Make a neat Luft '46 kit.

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