Mitsubishi J8M

In the fall of 1943, a Japanese military attaché in Germany visited the tests of the German Messerschmitt Me.163 Komet fighter jet, after which he proposed in his report to purchase a license for the production of aircraft and a jet engine in Japan. A discussion was held on this proposal in Japan, as there were doubts about the possibility of manufacturing the required amount of jet fuel. But at that time, B-29 raids on Japan began, and the army needed a high-speed interceptor that could quickly gain altitude. Therefore, in the end, the license was acquired for 20 million marks . The Germans pledged to provide relevant design documentation, as well as one set of airframe and engine with a set of spare parts. A group of German specialists was also scheduled to arrive in Japan to train Japanese engineers.

One of the submarines that transported the documentation and the Walter HWK 509A engine was sunk, but in the end, in July 1944, the 19-C specification for the manufacture of a jet interceptor was issued. The work was entrusted to the company Mitsubishi . It was a joint development of the army and navy, the aircraft received the naval designation J8M and army Ki-200 .

The development of the aircraft was led by engineer Mijiro Takahashi. The work went fast enough. Already in September, the layout was ready, and after its adoption, work began on the prototype aircraft.

Shortly after the start of work on the J8M, the fleet instructed the 1st Arsenal of the fleet in Yokosuk to create a similarly designed airframe to assess the controllability of the future interceptor and to use it to train pilots. The Yokosuka MXY8 glider made its first flight on February 8, 1944 and showed good performance.

Mitsubishi manufactured the first J8M aircraft in December 1944, but due to a delay in the development of the engine, tests began on a glider with ballast that simulated the full corresponding mass. This option received the army designation Ku-13 , and was intended for the training of combat pilots. In total, about 50-60 such gliders were built. The fleet was developing a similar variant, which received the designation Yokosuka MXY9, but the project was not completed by the end of the war.

For a more complete study of the flight characteristics of the interceptor at full load, glider tests were carried out with ballast, which simulated the mass of the engine and fuel. The plane took off in tow for the Nakajima B6N on January 8, 1945. Tests have shown the correctness of the selected solutions.

The Mitsubishi KR10 engine (the Japanese version of the Walter HWK 509A ) was only ready in April 1945, and for the first time the J8M aircraft took off on July 7, 1945. But the flight did not last long - shortly after takeoff, the engine stalled at an altitude of 350 m. The test pilot tried to land the plane, but during landing the plane crashed and was destroyed, the pilot died. To solve problems on the 6th and 7th samples, changes were made to the fuel system, but not a single J8M or Ki-200 was completed before the end of the war.

Until the end of the war, mass production of the aircraft was prepared in several versions: J8M1 with two 30-mm guns, J8M2 instead of one of the guns had an additional fuel tank. Army experts developed the Ki-202 variant, which had an increased fuselage and a larger fuel supply and was supposed to become the main army interceptor.

Specifications

• Crew: 1 person
• Length: 6.05 m
• Height: 2.70 m
• Wing span: 9.50 m
• Wing Area: 17.73 m²
• Empty weight: 1 505 kg
• Curb weight: 3 885 kg
• Engine: Mitsubishi KR10 (Toku Ro.2)
• Power: 14.7 kN

Flight performance

• Maximum speed: 900 km / h
• flight duration: 5 min 30 s
• Practical ceiling: 12,000 m

Armament

• Cannon:
  • 2x30 mm Ho-155 guns (J8M1)
  • 2x30 mm Type 5 guns (Ki-200)

• J8M1 - naval version with two 30-mm guns "Ho-155"
• J8M2 - naval version with one 30 mm “Type 5” gun and an additional fuel tank in the nose
• Ki-200 - army version of the 2 x 30-mm gun "Type 5"
• Ki-202 - a project of an army interceptor with an increased fuselage and a larger fuel tank

• A. Doroshkevich Planes of Japan of the Second World War.-Minsk, Harvest, 2004
• Series: History of Aviation Engineering. Japan Aviation in World War II. Part Two: Kawanishi-Mitsubishi. - TsAGI Publishing Department, 1996

•   Wikimedia Commons has Mitsubishi J8M related media files

• Messerschmitt Me.163 Komet
• Yokosuka MXY8
• Yokosuka MXY9