"Tony" in NZ – Jerry Yagen's Ki-61 arrives

Exciting stuff. It’s such a shapely machine, the Ki-61. I’d love to see one fly! [Stephen Grey, are you listening?!]

Thanks for the info and photos.

BTW, there are still more that could be recovered before it’s too late.

Laurent

That’ll be these two that I captured at HARS in November last year.

Mark

Rob Greinert’s shop, HARS, also has a few Ki-61 projects, also with some surviving Ha-40 engines. According to HARS, at least one of their Ki-61’s will be restored/flying with an original Kawasaki Ha-40 engine as well, just as the plan is for Yagen’s. At Precision, Kermit Weeks’ Ki-61 fuselage was being used as a guide in the restoration of Yagen’s and another, static example, but it is not seen in any of the photos in K5054NZ’s post (I believe what you’re seeing is a combination of all that Yagen owns as part of putting the one flying aircraft together, which has the known manufacturer number of 640 – as I recall, the wrecked parts you can see are part of another airframe owned by Yagen that the identity of which is unknown/only usable for reference/patterns, etc.). I’m pretty sure the fuselage you can see in the second photo posted by Mark12 is that of Kermit Weeks’ – the unrestored wings of Weeks’ Ki-61 are still in storage in Florida, and presumably, that is where the fuselage will eventually end up too(?).

Whoa….

There were three Ki-61 projects at Wangaratta on a 2008 visit and two on a further visit in 2013.

Mark

5 hours drive? In my case I would be in Paris then.

Ex Wang?

You’ve sharper eyes than I, Laurent! I know they are to do a project for Jerry Yagen and another for Kermit Weeks, so perhaps they’re all in this delivery. A staff member for Avspecs said on Facebook it’s Jerry’s.

Hello.

Project or projects ? See at least two fuselages + major parts of a third one.

Laurent