Red Box 1/72 Japanese Aircrew Figures

I have now had the opportunity to examine the plastic versions of the Red Box Japanese Aircrew figures originally released in resin and described here in August last year. Each set contains three identical sprues with 14 figures in different poses - so there are three figures of each pose in the set for a total of 42.  There are two additional figures in each set which were not included in the resin sets.

The three sets available are:-

RB72052 Japanese Army Aviation  Pilots and Ground Crew

The two additional figures are a pilot pulling himself up to the cockpit using the cord often attached to fighters for this purpose and a ground  crew man in shorts and cap with a paintbrush and pot of paint. Unfortunately the latter figure was short shot in my set and missing his right arm with the paint tin!  I especially like the ground crew figure in shorts and singlet lifting a belt of ammunition from a box.

RB72053 IJN Pilots and Ground Crew 

The extra figures are a ground crew man in overalls and cap pushing an aircraft tailplane and another ground crewman in floppy jungle hat kneeling using a screwdriver. My favourite figure is the man standing to attention and signalling with flag.

RB72048 Japanese Kamikaze

The extra figures are an officer in formal service dress and cap holding a tray of sake (?) and a ground crew man in service dress and cap bending forward to hold something. The ground crew figure waving his cap is especially fine.

All the figures are cleanly moulded with the first two sets in brown plastic and the Kamikaze set in white. The plastic is of the polythene type but harder than Airfix figures for example. The figures are not as "chunky" as the illustrations suggest but are "small" 1/72nd - rather like Preiser figures. The poses are imaginative and useful, offering the possibility of modification to create even more variations. I should have liked to see more pilots in tropical dress in the IJA set as the flying suits on four of the pilots are more typical of the bulky winter type. I'll endeavour to add some images of the actual figures to the blog shortly.

For anyone who likes to display their aircraft models with figures these sets are a must. The only snag is that they don't appear to be widely available and even though they are manufactured in Ukraine I had to order mine from Taiwan.

Image credit: © 2014 Red Box