FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0492.PDF
282 FLIGHT MARCH 15TH, 1945 Operational Japs Latest Official Data on Some Current Enemy Aircraft in the Far East THE belief, commonly held in this country andAmerica before the war, that Japanese aircraft wereas " cheap and nasty " as the flash-lamp bulbs they exported is now known to have been entirely fallacious.From the day they plunged into the war with their surprise attack on Pearl Harbour, it became increasingly evidentthat the crafty Nips had been leading the rest of the world up the garden for years. .So far from being any Gilbertand Sullivan outfit, the Mikado's air force had been taking every advantage of the information carelessly passed "onto them by us Anglo-Americans on how to design* build and use military aircraft, and constituted an air powerto be reckoned with. It is true that, beginning with the Val dive-bombersused on that fateful December 7th, many of the types first encountered were slightly hampered by fixed undercarriagesand thus did not completely shatter the carefully nursed notion of aerial inferiority at one fell blow. But thereWHS, it might as well be admitted, more up that flowing oriental sleeve than a yellow arm, and it is probably trueto say that the Japanese Air Force works to a higher stan- dard than is generally supposed even to-day_ Indeed theAmerican journal, Popular Science Monthly, which recently published an analysis of Japanese military aircraft, agreedthat several Jap types are superior to similar U.S. types in performance, adding that it was equally true that inother categories the U.S. types were definitely on top. High-performance Types Four types which come into the high-performance classand which have lately been encountered in combat may be taken as evidence of the efforts being made in research andproduction, though now that the U.S. Superforts are pay- ing steadily increasing attention to industrial targets onthe Jap homeland, it may not be too optimistic to look for a definite check to their productive activities. Availableinformation indicates, however, that certain weaknesses common to most Jap aircraft are being tackled, althoughit is true that, in general, insufficient attention has yet been paid to such things as armament—the muzzle velocityof their guns is inferior, and so are their sighting and com- pensating devices—the leakproofing of fuel tanks, and theprovision of adequately hardened steel for protective armour. Inferior control at high speeds has been another weak- ness with their fighter types, but this, at any rate, is beingrapidly improved. To enumerate the four new (or comparatively new) typesjust mentioned, Frank I is fitted with a water-injection device to provide emergency speedr and is believed tocarry armour for the protection of the pilot, bullet-resistant glass and leak-proof fuel tanks. Its i8-cylinder, two-row,air-cooled radial engine gives it a top speed of over 400 in.p.h., and it has a range of some 1,700 miles. A 400 m.p.h. Navy Interceptor Jack II is a Navy interceptor with a top speed of about400 m.p.h. and a range of just over 1,000 miles. Its engine is believed to be of 1,875 h.p., but it is not thought tohave any armour or self-sealing tanks. Irving II (illustrated and briefly described in Flight,February 15th) is a reconnaissance fighter-bomber and night-fighter with a top speed of about 330 m.p.h., and isfitted with armour plating behind the pilot and leak-proof1*** tanks. Its two Nakajima Sakae 21 air-cooled radial engines 'are each rated at about 1,100 h.p. at sea-level; it has a maximum cruising range of about 1,900 miles, and climbsat about 1,700ft. /min. at sea-level; three or four cannon are fitted. The fourth newcomer is Judy II, a dive-bomber with atop speed of about 330 m.p.h. and a range of 2,100 miles. It has recently been denied that the Japs' notorious pro-clivity for copying the products of other nations is extended to their aircraft, but it does not need a particularly care-ful study of many of their types to see that they have, to say the least of it, borrowed freely from both German andAmerican designs; indeed, the fuselage lines and long cock- - pit covers, and even an occasional fin and rudder outline,of some of their single-engined, two-seater types are dis- tinctly American in general appearance. Excellent Workmanship But this does not mean they are inferior; in some in-stances their adaptations actually show a definite improve- ment on the originals. It is generally agreed, too, that,so far as workmanship is concerned, their aircraft leave very little to be desired. When, some time ago, the Americans captured an almostundamaged " Zero " (as it was then called) in the Aleutians, they shipped it home and went over it with the proverbialfine-tooth comb. The official reports as a result of this examination gave the Japs full marks as craftsmen. Theaircraft was "made like a watch," and was finished wjtl\, a. verv thin coat of good quality lacquer; the instruments JILL 12, a torpedo-bomber with top speedof over 300 m.p.h EMILY 22 is one of the best of all Japanese aircraft and boasts a particu-larly good performance with a top speed of 296 ^n.p.h.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
