alejandro_
Airman 1st Class
- 281
- Jul 4, 2005
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I've always liked the Ki-61 (V12 engine) and Ki-100 (radial engine). However there must be a reason the IJA produced twice as many Ki-43s. Was the Ki-61 / Ki-100 expensive to produce compared to the Ki-43?
These two programs are separated by four years. How can they be connected? If adequately resourced the Ki-61 and/or Ki-100 would have been in mass production before the Ki-84 program had started. Unless the Ki-61 and/or Ki-100 were simply too expensive for Japan to afford.
However, the tight design of the engine made it difficult to maintain quality in manufacturing, and unreliability in the field was a significant problem; actual output of early models at altitude was in the range of 1300 hp (970 kW), far below the designed capability. Later models had improved performance, and it became one of the predominant powerplants of Japanese military aircraft in the latter part of the war
The first few produced J2M2 were delivered to the development units in December 1942 but severe problems were encountered with the engines. Trials and improvements took almost a year and the first batch of the serial built J2M2 Model 11 was delivered to 381st Kokutai in December 1943. Parallel with the J2M2, production of the J2M3 Raiden Model 21 started. The first J2M3 appeared in October 1943 but deliveries to combat units started at the beginning of February 1944
That's exactly what Japan needed.
The Kasei engine was probably Japan's best bet for getting such an engine into mass production by 1942. Perhaps the Homare engine would be the long term follow-on for the Kasei engine. Both are air cooled so there would be some sharing of technology.
Maybe Japan licensed the wrong German technology.
During 1937 Dornier patented the extension shaft design which was eventually employed on the Do-335 fighter. Would a similiar prop extension shaft work on a Japanese fighter powered by the Kasei radial engine?
Personally I wouldn't bother.adding a strong enough cowl/fuselage structure to support the propeller independent of the engine is going to add weight and access difficulties.
A sort of big winged Ki-44 might have been producible in 1942/43 and while not the equal of the Ki-84 it should have been better than the Ki-43 which was kept in production until the wars end.
For your Ki-61 article some interesting information is here;