Thanks Jose and Dan!
Jose, a good question concerning the number of
floatplanes. I don't know yet. One possibility would be to follow history as close as possible. In the book �Battle of Surigao Strait� from A. P. Tully there is the statement that Mogami embarked 5 Jakes for her last sortie. This will give a half empty deck. Maximum floatplanes seemed to be eleven. At the moment I have no decision. Another problem: I used 3 of the Tamiya�s Petes for my Tone model. I compared the Yankee Modelworks � Fujimi- Aoshima and Tamiya floatplanes. The Fujimi planes are from transparent plastic and have very thick wings. Thinning is a problem with this material and the details will be lost. A pity because the clear cockpit is an improvement or can be easily substituted with a PE frame. In my opinion, the Tamiya Petes and Jakes are the best here. But they are not available additionally. My hope is the Hasegawa floatplane set A (I ordered already 2 and it seems that they will appear next month). The Hasegawa Jake from the Yahagi kit looks really good (clear canopy and the rest in normal plastic).
Here a baby step update of my progress:
This is the
aft bridge and main mast in a semi finished state.
- Mogami65
I intend to add a lot more of details. The upper part of the main mast is a tapered brass mast from BMK, some PE parts from the Lionroar kits (reinforced by steel needles). I used also some
steel needles alone. I really like them. The larger ones have a diameter of 0.25mm and the tiny ones a diameter of 0.1mm.
- Mogami66
They are original intended to penetrate insects (insect pins) but I prefer the application in a ship model. In Germany they can be ordered at
http://www.fiebig-lehrmittel.de/index.p ... egoryid=19
For some of the details I followed the Miyukikai plan. But in this plan Mogami�s aft bridge have a very different appearance compared to the Tamiya version. Another question is the
crane (see Mogami 65). In the Lionroar kit there are two different versions. One is the same like in the Tamiya kit (only much better detailed). In the Miyukikai plan it is also the same but here it is clear that this is an I-beam profile. Looks a little weak and in the book �Mechanisms of Japanese Heavy cruisers� there are two pictures where such a crane failed (bended in the middle by more than 90�). But I can not read the Japanese text. So I decided to use the heavier crane version because I think especially in a ship like Mogami with all the floatplanes (also the Zuiun was planned) a more stable crane is very likely. Dan, do you know more?
Dirk
I needed some time to develop a plan. First I cut all the plastic pillars from the Tamiya plastic flight deck and glued it one by one to the corresponding position of the lower deck (Mogami37). 
well there is a saying that goes better safe than sorry.. its all good as long as you dont get yourself a radioactive suit 
i think i could stand next to the funnel on shot 74 .. awesome work Dirk