Best Japanese fighter

The Homare was using water injection in order to circumvent the fuel limitations. The report, kindly posted by krieghund in the 'Engines' sub section, gives ~1650 HP power when water injection was used in second superchager gear.
Question also arises: why the max RPM was lowered from 3000 to 2900? Fuel should not be the issue, maybe it's about reliabilty?

It is very much possible that earlier Homare versions did not used water injection.

Just a guess but it might be related to cooling. Air cooled engines having a bit of problem at high altitudes for several reasons. Not only do you have less air flowing over the cylinders but the supercharger in high gear heats the air to a higher temperature than in low gear even though the intake air is cooler. Limiting the engine rpm not only reduces the power output and heat generated but lowers the supercharger impeller rpm by somewhere around 900-1000 rpm for most engines in high gear and trades heat/destiny of the intake charge against the extra power of the rpm. Might be important depending on the limit of the fuel. I would also note that the P&W R-1830 often was restricted to 2550 rpm in high gear vs 2700 rpm in lower gears for military power or while military power was listed for low gear it was NOT listed for high gear ( or for high gear on the two stage engines).

The Japanese did have radar at Midway but it was only fitted to a couple of the BB's which were not with the carriers. If they had been who knows what would have happened

Great comments! As far as I know, the following problems affected the Japanese fighter planes from late 1942: first of all, experienced pilots couldn't be replaced after he battle of Midway (green rookies were ill prepared to face a much larger American opposition with competent training); also as the war progressed, Japan had serious difficulties with its engine production (i.e. the Ki series engine gremlins) as well as the bombing impediments of course. It appears (in my humble opinion) that the engines produced at most times always lacked the comparative h.p. of their American contemporaries.

Something I have never fully understood the causes for. I have read over and over that the shortage of pilots was a huge issue in Japan. Was there such a small supply? Was it cultural? I mean pilot training must have been similar the world over and the RAF and USA seemed to make good on staggering losses of trained men why did not the Japanese?

Robert Porter said:

Something I have never fully understood the causes for. I have read over and over that the shortage of pilots was a huge issue in Japan. Was there such a small supply? Was it cultural? I mean pilot training must have been similar the world over and the RAF and USA seemed to make good on staggering losses of trained men why did not the Japanese?

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It seems that Japan's pre-war training demanded exceptional qualities from its applicants (reference: Saburo Sakai) which also explained Japan's early war dominance of the skies (in association with the Mitsubishi fighter outstanding qualities). I suspect that after the great pilot loses of 1942, the navy and the army never had the quality/experienced pilots required to an efficient training program (in fact an acute problem with the numerical US dominance therefore pilots like Sakai and others remained on the front line), as well as the facilities (due to bombing) and possibly the need for an effective fast paced and quality curriculum. In many ways, the Germans faced an identical problem on both European fronts plus in both cases, an acute material unbalanced meant in some cases that an allied inferior product would upset its opponents through sheer quantity (an example from another field: Sherman tanks could by their sheer numbers overpower the superior hardware facing them).

The RAF and the USAAF: had a crucial advantage - security. Pilots could be trained across the Atlantic or the Pacific) without interference. Planes of all types could be produced without bombing handicaps which postponed production or simply destroyed the facilities. It became an extremely potent interference in all cases for the axis powers.

German and Japanese aircraft production was stretched to the limit and completely dedicated to the production of fighter planes and bombers and their industrial system could not afford, for example, the sixteen thousand North American T6 produced, not to mention all other basic and multi-engine trainers produced in U:SA:, U.K. and Commonwealth and U.S.S.R.
After September 8th, 1943, Luftwaffe was delighted not only to get all valuable Italian aircrafts present in some numbers, like the SM 82 transports, but also to all Italian trainers on which Luftwaffe could lay their hands.
If you add to this a chronic shortage of gasoline allowed to the flying schools the picture is almost complete.