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Platz 1/100 Kawasaki T-4 “Blue Impulse”

By Matt Bittner

Introduction

Japan's Kawasaki T-4 is their subsonic, intermediate jet trainer and is currently being used by their Blue Impulse aerobatic team.

The Kit

The Platz 1/100 Kawasaki T-4 consists of 44 pieces of white, injected plastic.  Three clear pieces (although there are more on the fret, those are not for this release) and a stand the kit can be displayed on.  Decals are extremely nicely printed and consists of not only the primary markings for the Blue Impulse team, but numbers and crew names for all six aircraft of the team.  So, you can build any of the Blue Impulse team with the decals that come in the kit.  One thing with the decals.  While there are blue decals for the upper, and white decals for the lower, I would actually paint all major areas instead of "hoping" you get the blue you need to paint the same color that exists on the decal sheet.  Sure, the instructions have a formula for the blue (75% of one color and 25% of another) but if you paint the larger areas there is no "hoping" the colors come out consistent.

One thing about the instructions.  They're entirely in Japanese.  Granted, using the numbers of (I'm guessing) Gunze paints you can get there for the colors, but if you're not a Gunze user than you'll need something to translate Gunze numbers into other paints.  The other thing with the instructions you need to be aware of is there is nothing that shows where and how the stand is to be used.  The instructions don't show where to drill to attach the stand to the airframe and on first glance I couldn't see anything on the plastic that showed where the stand is to go.  Maybe it's left to the builder?  I'm not sure.

Kit construction starts with adding the seats, instrument panels and control sticks to the one-piece cockpit tub.  This is added to a fuselage half, then the fuselage halves – and fuselage underside – are glued together.  Another thing the instructions don't mention is the need for any weight.  I would add it "just to be sure" as there is plenty of room in the nose.  The next step consists of adding the wings, the horizontal tail pieces, some external "bumps" to the fuselage, and gluing the intakes together and then to the fuselage.

Now a decision is needed.  Do you build the aircraft with the landing gear up or down?  There are separate parts for both – complete doors you use if wanting the model in flying-mode, as well as different, separate doors if you want the model with the landing gear deployed.  I would say if you're building the aircraft with the gear-up, then by all means glue the doors on now prior to painting.  However, if building the gear down then it's best to leave everything off until after painting.  Especially with the masking you'll need to accomplish if you paint the large areas and not rely on the decals.

Conclusion

All in all this is a very nice kit.  Extremely well detailed and if you want to pick up six models you can build the entire Blue Impulse team.  My only question is the scale.  I'm wondering if 1/100 is a popular scale in Japan, as it seems to me this kit would be awesome in 1/144.  Even so, the Platz 1/100 T-4 is an excellent kit, and I think a good introductory kit to model building, or an excellent choice if needing something to build quickly, and/or to bust you out of AMS builds.

My thanks to Platz for the review kit.