Road to Top Gun — P.J. Ash and his Rising Sun Japanese Zero

Road to Top Gun — P.J. Ash and his Rising Sun Japanese Zero

PJ has just finished his Top Gun competition plane which is a Meister Scale long wing Zero. The wingspan is 118 inches and the model is powered with a Quadra 100 swinginga Xoar 26×10 prop.

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It has Sierra retracts, and is guided by JR 12x.  For the impressive slightly weathered South Pacific finish, PJ used Tamiya paints over a silver base coat.  The weathering was done by carefully sanding off the top layers to expose the aluminum color.

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The cockpit started out as a basic Zero cockpit kit from Bob Dively Models to which he added a ton more detail too with different things from craft stores and a lot of G-10 material all glued together with Zap products.  Flight tests are next and PJ thinks he’ll have a good chance in the Pro-Am Propeller class. Stay tuned

Flight Test Pix from PJ’s FaceBook page

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Updated: July 15, 2015 — 3:54 PM

9 Comments

  1. Very nice bird. Good job pj

  2. the zeros were first painted in a shiney grey from the factorys, when they got to airfeilds where the rough green paints were added,

  3. Very few details, on camo, and squadron signs were ever recorded, and even after the war, no body and ever spoke…as so much devastation..and everybody trying to forget or move on in life..to re establish. Virtually all documentation, describing the order of squadrons was destroyed, as is done in retreating…….the only ones who would have known died or disapeared…to be lost in the eventuality of time. very good model…love that weathered look.

  4. Most information has been found, from a A6m2 rebuild, there is only one airworthy zero left, and only one original..working sakia engine, The zeros were saved, from port morsby, n a huge effort (as the port morsby authorotys wouldnt let the finders ship the planes out, (in the 60s…scap metal was sought) eventually 3 zeros were shipped, and from 3 a single one was rebuilt, tail from one, wngs from another main fuselarge from another, the last zero was ……flown in the film bora bora bora…….and flys to this day in america, it resides in the CAF Confederate air force, which is a organisation set up after ww2T with owners of ww2 aircraft, they all got together to help keep there aircraft fllying and be like a squadron of old, T he zeros, are a intresting aeroplane, reason is, they were !! all!! hand built, honest, each one, unfortunately, japan did not have the resources to build like america or uk, and each zero, has inscriptions, from each indavidual who built it, lucky inscriptions, Obviously not on every peice as would compromise vital components.

  5. Early zeros, had folding wing tips only, later modded, zeros had wingtip flat ends, the later zeros had slightly improved engines, and the wing tips cuts, the yanks thought, it a new model of aircraft, but looking back now we know, the zeroes…were lightly built, Armour was improved on some models, later, but..due to there lighter builds, they could not do so higher G maneuvers as the yanks aircraft, they were agile..able to move change direction fast…but danger of…wing collapse excessive maneuvers was always that danger. Not that any recorded incidents ever were known.And in the heat of battle..ho writes stuff down…..and life back then wasnt as recorded and noted as nowa days were u cant even move, with out some one being camera man or internet blogger

  6. Outstanding…… awesome job

  7. What a model…great job. And many thanks to Jango for the historic back – story.

  8. Some of the information in the comment section is not correct. How about the 6 zeros, still in crates, found in a South Pacific cave and purchased in the late 1980’s One is located in Canada. He paid a visit to a Oklahoma City air show and I took many pictures. Not sure where the others ended up. P J Ash did a nice build. Ps it flew in the Air Show.

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