Hayate Walkaround

About the Peace Museum

This walkaround was taken at the Peace Museum for Kamakaze pilots in Chiran, Kagoshima prefecture, Kyushu. The museum has a T-6 Texan out front, as well as a Ki-61-II and the Hayate inside. While difficult to get to, I found it well worth the trip. From Tokyo, we took the Shinkansen south west to Hakata (near Fukuoka in northern Kyushu). Then we took a slower train south to the city of Kagoshima. Then we took a hour bus ride to Chiran. Since this area usually doesn't see much in the way of foreign tourists, Japanese language skills are very useful. Aside from the museum, Chiran hosts a preserved samurai town as well as excellent tea. One important note is that the museum usually does not allow photography, and there are many signs posted around the museum to that effect. I asked and was granted permission my the museum manager to take pictures just before closeing time, when most other visitors had left. Unfortunately it was a little dark inside the museum, so the flash wasn't too useful on the wide shots and those came out rather grainy and low in contrast. A liberal amount of image processing was required to make the images presentable. However, the flash did allow some interesting things to be seen inside the cowling and wheel wells. Some photos of the Texan can be found at the bottom of this page.

The pictures

Overall views

Nose

Fuselage

Landing gear

Wings

Tail

Canopy

T-6 Texan

All picture copyright me. Last update on Jan 22, 2002 by Mike Connelley