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 on one of Japan’s well-known WWII aircraft:  the “KAWASAKI Ki-61 HIEN (TONY)”, FAOW Chart Number 143, May 1984.

 

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 Blue Cover and the Chart (or Graph) Covers.  This vintage FAOW featuring the Ki-61 is from the earlier Chart Cover Series of the 1980s 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.

 

The TONY was the only mass-produced Japanese fighter of the war to use a liquid-cooled inline "V" engine. Powered by a licensed copy of the Daimler Benz DB-601 – the same engine that powered the Me-109 and the Macchi MC-202 – the Ki-61 first flew in December 1941 but did not enter operational service until early 1943 during the New Guinea campaign. Initially, due to its unusual appearance for a Japanese fighter, the Allies believed it to be of German or Italian origin, possibly a license-built Bf 109; this misconception and the ‘Italian-like appearance’ led to its code name of TONY.  The Ki-61 was utilized in the South and Southwest Pacific, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, Okinawa, China, Manchuria, and in the defense of the Japanese homeland against American B-29 Superfortresses.  In this capacity, a few increasingly desperate pilots used their TONYs to ram the high-flying and heavily-armed B-29s.  A number of Ki-61s were also used in kamikaze missions launched toward the end of the war.

 

This 56-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. This vintage FAOW provides exceptional coverage of this exceptional aircraft and the condition of this rare, long out-of-print FAOW is overall GOOD/GOOD+ with moderate shelf wear to the covers and lightly bumped corners – otherwise, TIGHT, BRIGHT and very CLEAN. Note that Over the Blue Horizon ships from the USA with FREE United States Postal Service (USPS) FIRST 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!