Kokusai Ki 86 Army Type 4 or Watanabe K9W Navy Type 2

Czech Master Resin, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Mark Davies

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In the early 1930’s the newly founded Luftwaffe had a need for large numbers of trainers in three engine power ranges: 240-hp, 150-hp and 80-hp. The last category was met by the Bu 131 produced by the newly formed Bucker company (Its founder, Carl Bucker, had returned from Sweden where he had been Managing Director of Svenska Aero AB following his WW1 service as a pilot in the German Naval Air service).

The 80-hp design had to be economical to produce and operate, sturdy, and suitable for primary training and introduction to aerobatics. As such it had above average manoeuvrability. An international appreciation of its characteristics led to licence production by Japan, as well as by Switzerland, Spain, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia under other designations.

Although the Bu 131 as a primary trainer that was already in service with the Imperial Japanese Navy the Japanese still made several indigenous attempts to equal or better it. None succeeded, so licence production was implemented. Watanabe produced the Bu 131 as the K9W for the navy. Later the Imperial Japanese Army chose to copy the design and have it manufactured by Kokusai as the Ki 86. Both designs used the same Hitachi 110-hp engine, and both were know under the Allied-reporting name of Cypress.

This is a new tooling of the K9W / Ki 86 by CMR. It is packaged in a sturdy top-opening box with attractive box art. Similar kits have also been released by CMR at the same time, these being the German Bu 131 and the Czechoslovak Aero C-4 / C-104.   

The parts and decals are in heat sealed plastic bags, which in turn are sealed in a further bag with the instructions and colour scheme diagrams. Straightforward instructions consist of four A5 pages, an A4 page with a rigging diagram. There are three A4 pages of 4-view painting & marking guides with colour call-outs in generic colours plus some codes I’m not familiar with.

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The parts breakdown is completely conventional for a small biplane, although a nice touch is the one-piece fuselage that receives the cockpit from its underside. Casting blocks will be easily removed, as will the very thin flash that is present in places. The wing struts and the undercarriage are cast in a pale tan resin. This resin obviously has better load-bearing properties than the cream resin used for the remainder of the kit.

Some will appreciate the clear resin windscreens over the more usual CMR vac-from clear parts. There is an alternative flat acetate sheet with two windscreen outlines. These will need to be carefully cut out and folded if chosen in preference to the clear resin options. Personally I’m happy with either medium. The Eduard-sourced colour PE fret supplies instrument panels and seat belts, throttles etc to dress up the small open cockpits nicely.

Decals are typical of CMR, being well registered and suggest good opacity. Based on past experience they should be very good to use; but like most Czech decals they will be quite thin and need to be floated into position, as they tend to adhere extremely well once there is no fluid under them. Two schemes are overall trainer orange with our without black cowl, and the other is green upper surfaces over orange with a black cowl.

This is a superbly executed kit of an interesting subject. Being a small biplane it may be a little fiddly to build, but well worth the effort. I highly recommended it.

Thanks to Czech Master Resin for this review sample.

CMR Models are available online from Hannants in the UK,
Red Roo Models in Australia and quality specialist model retailers worldwide.

Text Copyright © 2009 by Mark Davies
This Page Created on 18 October, 2009
Last updated 20 October, 2009

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