Offered by Over The Blue Horizon and obtained last year in Tokyo is a vintage and increasingly difficult-to-obtain Famous Airplanes of the World (FAOW) volume featuring one of Japan’s lesser known, late WWII aircraft:  the “YOKOSUKA D4Y SUISEI ‘JUDY’”, FAOW Blue Number 44, December 1973.

As Japanese aviation experts are aware, the well-regarded FAOW series has been in print for decades, and the format has understandably evolved over the years.  The current Series is characterized by a Black Cover, but earlier formats included the White Cover, Blue Cover and the Chart (or Graph) Cover series.  This vintage FAOW featuring the JUDY is from the earlier Blue Cover Series of the 1970s and like all FAOWs, offers exceptional photographs (many rarely seen in the West), line drawings, illustrations of details such as cockpit interiors, and color profiles. This 72-page, 7.25 x 10.25 inch softcover is no exception – although text is in Japanese, the level of pictorial detail keeps this vintage volume in high demand among advanced modelers. 

Designed as a fast carrier-based attack bomber and powered by a license-built, in-line Daimler-Benz DB 600G engine, the D4Y1 was first flown in December 1941; D4Y1-C reconnaissance aircraft were ordered into production at Aichi's Nagoya plant, the first of 660 aircraft being completed in the late spring of 1942. The first service aircraft were lost when the aircraft carrier Soryu was sunk at Midway.  174 Suiseis of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Koku Sentais were embarked in nine carriers before the Battle of the Philippine Sea, but most were intercepted by American carrier-based fighters and the JUDYs suffered heavy casualties without achieving any success.  Problems of reliability with the Atsuta (DB 600G) in-line engine led to adoption of a Kinsei 62 radial in the D4Y3, and this engine was retained in the D4Y4 which was developed in 1945 as a single-seat suicide dive-bomber. A total of 2,033 production D4Ys were completed.

This vintage FAOW provides exceptional coverage of this exceptional late-war aircraft and the condition of this rare, long out-of-print FAOW is overall FAIR+/GOOD with moderate shelf wear to the covers -- a CLEAN, SOLID copy.  Note that Over the Blue Horizon ships from the USA with FREE United States Postal Service (USPS) FIRST CLASS shipping to USA buyers! eBay charges sales tax for certain states; Over the Blue Horizon charges Hawaii residents state general excise tax. Your purchase will be carefully wrapped to ensure that it arrives in the same condition as described in the eBay listing, and it should arrive within 4-6 days.  If you are not happy with your purchase for whatever reason, we will work something out -- your satisfaction is GUARANTEED.  Regardless of where you are in the world, buy with confidence from a well-established eBay merchant with a sterling reputation and an exceptionally high customer satisfaction rate – check out our feedback!