I have always been very interested in the Pacific Theater of the Second World War. There are a number of nice releases from this time in history that I have purchased that keep me looking for new releases. The Val appeared to be an obsolete aircraft, but as history has shown, when used within its limits, it can and did become a lethal weapon, much as the Stuka was for Germany.The color of the aircraft struck me as odd when I first saw it, but then I looked at some drawings and pictures and saw that the craftsmen had done their homework. Again the panel lines are not overexaggerated with a nice touch with the walking strip on the port wing and navigation lights on each wing tip. The underside includes a bomb attached to its swing mechanism, engine exhaust, wheel skirts that gave the airplane a unique look, what appears to be devices to stabilize the airplane in a dive, tail wheel with the hook for landing, and what I think is a communication antennae. Through the cowling there is a nice amount of detail of the engine cylinders. The prop has two red stripes on each blade that are identical on the front of the blades but not on the backside. I am not sure if that is an omission or a mistake. I have another Japanese dive bomber from another manufacturer that also is without stripes on the back of the blades, so maybe they just didn''t apply them to the back because the ground crew would not be between the prop and leading edge of the wing. The markings are very simple on this example along with the black anti glare paint on the cowling. There's not a lot to this plane other than a simple design that was effective at its job "dive bombing". This is a nice addition to my Pacific collection. Nice job Skymax. A nice value for the price and sturdy construction.
Editors Note: It is quite common to paint the front of the propellor and not the back, so this should be correct to the actual plane.