In the absence of any other explanation, a Japanese facsimile of a Northrop is as good as any. It certainly has elements more closely aligned to Northrop designs than any other make I've seen. I do not believe this plane has anything to do with the Spanish Civil War as proffered elsewhere...
The radial engines side air intake and gear housing behing the prop suggests a Pratt and Whitney R-1340 S3H engine. The wing dihedral, pitot tube and canopy windscreen suggests a Northrop aircraft. The engine cowling is off from any Gamma. Japan got 2 civil Northrop Gammas, both went to the...
Interesting. Other than unsuccessfully attempting to negotiate a manufacturing license for the KI-46, I didn't know the German had any internest in Japanese planes. This one-off E8N is the only one I've heard of.
Propeller cone, tear-drop wheel spats, weird wing dihedral, huge lettering under the wing, Kamikaze-ish paint job, palm tree in the back ground. Could be Japanese. Looks C5M Bab'ish to me. That's not it, but looks Japanese.
I notice the report comments on improve manueverability due to squared wing tips, yet the photos of the plane include the rounded tips of the earlier P-40s. 42-9987 was initially a modified P-40K without squared tips and without a bubble canopy and was designated XP-40Q-1. "Curtiss Aircraft...
Real world comparison: A6M2 with a 5'3" 120lb pilot who has eaten nothing but rice and a little fish for weeks on end, who is slightly feverish and a bit queasy and may have malaria, versus a P-39 with a 5'10" pilot, 155lb who has diarrhea, lost a card game last night and most of his script...
Is there any evidence that wing-tips broke on aircraft in service use? I know there were demostrations of the breaking tip, but I've yet to see an account of one breaking on an aircraft in service. It's my understanding that the tip-feature was removed in 1949 - the last year the Bearcat was...
The source doesn't exist. The 650km/h figure isn't for the A7M2. It's for the never-built A7M3-J.
Top speed for the A7M2 was 390 mph at 21,655 ft. 7 prototypes and service-trials aircraft were built, and 1 production aircraft. (2 A7M1 prototypes were built.)
Source: Japanese Aircraft of...
I remember a saying among mil-surplus collectors: The Enfield was the best battle rifle, the Springfield was the best target rifle, and the Mauser was the best hunting rifle.
There's no question that their was military value in shooting down fighters-bombers. They did an immense amount of damage. But Hans-Joachim Marseille and JG27 did little to stop bombers, concentrating on fighters instead. Bombers, by and large, attacked German troops with impunity.
In...