Want to win free stuff? If you can find me a color photograph of the Japanese Ki-84 Hayate that I can publish in my forthcoming book, I will happily send you your choice of a Fritz the Fox DVD (either his existing DVD, Fritzkrieg, or the new one when it is completed later this year) or a hard copy of Fritz the Fox's Funny Little Book of WW2 Airplanes, which should be available by Christmas. You can learn more about Fritz the Fox at
http://www.fritzthefox.com
That is, my book SHOULD be done by xmas, assuming I can find this elusive Ki-84 picture, which has been a real challenge so far. Right now, it's holding up publication. Here's the poop:
There is one surviving example of the Ki-84 (that I know of, anyway), which was bought from the Smithsonian and restored by Ed Maloney, the founder of the Planes of Fame. It was registered as N3385G. It was flown here for a while and finally ended up in the Chiran Kamikaze Museum of Peace in Japan. (All military museums are called "Peace Museums" in Japan, which would bring a tear to Huxley's eye)
There are several color pictures of it in flight and in the museum floating around the web, but so far I have had zero luck contacting the copyright owners, primarily owing to language barriers. I am depressingly monolingual. (Or flylingual, anyway)
If you can find me a color picture that is in the public domain or can coax the copyright holder of a good color photo to let me publish it (they retain all rights, will get photo credit and will recieve a free PDF of the book, along with my undying gratitude) then you're a winner.
If you can put me in touch with a copyright holder of such a photo but they do NOT consent to publication, you get my sympathies, but no prize. (That's the luck part. Think of it as a raffle...)
There is a stock photo agency that owns rights to a Ki-84 photo that is currently misidentified as an NIK2 Shiden at
www.photovault.com whose owner is now aware that it is actually a Ki-84 and that I would like to publish it (I told him), but who is unwilling to do so without tangling me up in a licensing agreement that I consider unacceptable. I don't want my book to end up languishing out of print because of some copyright headache, so I declined to use his. So don't waste your time with there.
I have a recent request in with Planes of Fame and their photographer, but have not heard anything back yet. If you have friends in Chino, it might be a good place to look.
Beyond that, you're on your own. First one to come up with a good color photo I can use wins. The only deadline is whenever I manage to finally find a photo or die of old age, whichever comes first.
If you DO find something, PM me here or email me at fritz at boomandzoomgraphics.com
Happy hunting!
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