This scene probably owes more to mid-Twentieth Century paranoia then reality... but I was thinking about how to pose my Lockheed Electra with tweaked texture when an "interception" scenario played out- perhaps the title sequence introducing some conspiracy thriller etc etc. Like "National Treasure" ...but with coconuts. So I asked myself the question- what came before Zero? What aircraft might have flown such a covert mission in 1937. Perhaps the Mitsubishi A5M is the answer? The A5M is overshadowed by its spoiled younger brother, the A6M "Zeke" which appeared like a thunderclap in 1941. And obviously some things changed in the "upgrade"! The A5M carrier-based fighter I've modelled here in Shade didn't become a movie star. Its available colour schemes suggest that when not camouflagued on the front in China it had the gawdy "warpaint" that's perhaps typical of naval aircraft of the era. Indeed its likely to be more colourful than Earhart's red and silver Electra. But its open cockpit and fixed landing gear looks positively old-fashioned. Soon outclassed and pulled from front-line service during the Pacific war, the A5M's reporting name became "Claude." You can imagine how that played... "OMG its two Claudes at 12'oclock!!!" Clearly its a name that doesn't exactly inspire fear but that's all relative to whether its two machine guns were pointing at you or somewhere else. I modelled both aircraft in Shade. They are rendered in Poser 6. The Claude's pilot is Michael 2 with the RDNA pilots cap and DAZ Tunic