And done.
After briefly being considered for anti-shipping work, the handful of Ki-109 conversions sat idle for some eight months after the colossal earthquakes in Hawaii and the West Coast all but halted the war in the Pacific in the Autumn of 1944. Given the respite that would prolong the war into 1947, several advanced projects saw fruition, albeit in generally limited form. Among these were a further conversion of eight of the twenty-two completed Ki-109s into the Ki-109kai with the addition of a pair of Kayaba 2c ramjets mounted on the rear
fuselage. Though the rate of climb and top speed were markedly improved, the ramjets were in higher demand for Kayaba's interceptor project, and the Ohka Type 73, and no further conversions were completed.
Occasionally seen over Tokyo as the fire raids were resumed in March of 1946, They were moderately effective, but still hampered by their hand loaded cannon, they disappeared from service as their natural counter, the ramjet-equipped Mustangs, began appearing in the late Summer of '46.
Finished. Remaining completion shots will be in the completion thread. One minor disaster - the plane took a fall from the bench, snapping off the cannon, one of the ramjet mounts, and cracked the bottom forward fuselage right after painting. I glued things back together as delicately as I could, and hand brushed a little more orange over the bottom. I could not find the gun barrel, so fished an old Fujimi Pak 40 out of the spares
box, and used the barrel from that - it's probably closer to scale. The decoration on the fin is meant to
represent the 'green flash' supposedly seen just at sunset.
DSCF0239 by
VileDr.Yo, on Flickr