Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa

Fighter of the Army Aviation (AA) of the Japanese Ground Forces “Type 1” (designation “Ki-43”) was developed by the Aviation Design Bureau of the Nakajima plant ( Japan ). The development of a prototype of a promising fighter for the Ground Forces Air Force began in late 1937. The Ki-43 prototype made its first flight at the beginning of 1939. The main requirement for the fighter was to maintain combat maneuverability at the level of its predecessor ( Type 97 army fighter aircraft (Ki-27 Nakajima) ) with increased speed and increased radius of action .

To meet these requirements, the engineers of the Nakajima design bureau decided to use the so-called so-called “fighter” on a new fighter “Fowler's flaps ”, which increased the wing's lifting force and increased the horizontal maneuverability of the aircraft at increased flight speeds. In the end result, the bend speed of the Type 1 fighter was significantly higher than that of the Type 97 . The price of this was the lower structural strength - for the Type 1 fighter it was not uncommon to crack the center section skin at the junction with the fuselage, despite the strengthening of the skin material with the Mod. 1-b. "

The first modification of the Ki-43a fighter was armed with two Type 98a machine guns of a 7.7 mm rifle caliber. At the end of 1941, on the Ki-43b modification, one of the machine guns was replaced with a large-caliber machine gun Ho-103 (Type 1) of 12.7 mm caliber (licensed version of the M2 machine gun). According to the design of the design bureau of the Nakajima factory, it was planned to replace the Type 98a machine guns with large-caliber , but armor-piercing incendiary (explosive) bullets of the early series, often jammed in the barrel due to poor-quality mechanical processing, or detonated during firing.

In the fall of 1941, Type 1 fighters of the Army Ground Forces appeared on the Chinese front in service with the units of the Kwantung Army aviation. In total, they were equipped with 32 AA regiments of the Japanese Ground Forces, 36 aircraft each.

A total of 5919 units were produced. Type 1 fighters actively participating in hostilities.

Specifications

• Crew: 1 person
• Length: 8.92 m
• Wing span: 10.84 m
• Height: 3.6 m
• Wing Area: 21.3 m²
• Empty weight: 1 920 kg
• Curb weight: 2,500 kg
• Maximum take-off weight: 2,830 kg
• Engine : Sakae 14-cylinder star engine mod. Ha-115 air cooling produced by Nakajima with a capacity of 1130 liters. from. (890 kW)

Flight performance

• Maximum speed : 558 km / h (at an altitude of 6000 m) / 475 km / h (at sea level)
• Cruising speed : 440 km / h
• Combat radius: 720 km
• Practical range: 3,200 km
• Practical ceiling : 11,300 m
• Rate of climb: 15.3 m / s (average up to 6000 m)

Armament

• Machine gun: 2 × 12.7 mm machine gun Ho-103 250 rounds per barrel
• Bomb load: 2 × 250 kg bombs

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• The imperial air force of manzhou

• Kharuk A.I. Fighters of the Second World War. The most complete encyclopedia. - M .: Yauza, EKSMO, 2012 .-- 368 p. - 1,500 copies - ISBN 978-5-699-58917-3 .

• Nakajima Ki 43 Hayabusa Martin C. Windrow & RJ Francillon - Aircraft profile 46. 1967 Translated by A. Plakhov, revised by V. Moiseev
• Ki-43 'Oscar' at wwiiaircraftperformance.org

• http://www.cofe.ru/avia/N/N-17.htm
• Hiroshi Ichimura. Ki-43 'Oscar' Aces of World War 2. - Osprey Publishing, 2009 .-- 96 p. - ISBN 9781846034084 .