¹⁄700

IJN Seaplane Tender Notoro

"Crew-mate Alec Cap (bigal07) shares a gallery of images of his build of the IJN Seaplane Tender Notoro, in this MSW "On Display" Feature!"

Model Kit-Skywave/Pitroad, 1/700 scale IJN Aux. Seaplane Tender Notoro 1941, #W062

This vessel was originally completed as a larger oiler in 1920 Kawasaki shipyard, and it wasn't until the later part of the 1930's that she was then converted into a seaplane tender.

And this is where a whole list of weird and wonderful upgrade, conversion, and change begins, her cranes were both strengthened and extended for hooking up aircraft that she couldn't launch from her deck,and small boats would constantly be lowered to toe aircraft towards the awaiting ship.

These conversions destroyed her range of vision so much so, that a pilot house was set up on the lower part of her forward mast, more a white-elephant then seaplane tender.

The model itself, was fantastic to build, very little to go wrong, and even with the odd scratch build here and there, this model is crying out to be placed into a diorama!