eBay: Japanese airplanes and other hardware.

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The Mitusbishi A5M Kansen (Claude) has to be the most beautiful aircraft ever designed. Sorry I have to relegate the Supermarine Spitfire to 2nd place when it comes to beautiful aircraft designs.



Designed by a barely out of his youth Mitsubishi Chief Engineer HORIKOSHI Jiro, it is such a graceful birdlike design it flies without needing any imagination such are the graceful lines that curve the fuselage back to the tail and the Spitfire like eliptical wings. No-one has designed a flying machine like it ever since and never will in my humble opinion.



While Horikoshi sans legacy is said to be the Navy Type 0 fighter Zero-sen I doubt anything can surpass the brilliance of the Navy Type 96 Fighter Kansen. It is both inspirational and practical in its design and as is often the case no example survived the war with almost all A5M Kansens expended in kamikaze attacks.

Moky for JEC
 
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and for Shinpachi the translation

Military Education in Japan. Youngsters for Japan's Air Force: these two Japanese students test the carrying capacity of the models they have built themselves. Strings run from the model machines onto a board that the boys kick at. This is how this airplane starts on its "test flight" in the classroom. A childish game that at the same time teaches the basics of flying and makes the students familiar with the nature of aviation and the air force at an early stage.
 
GrauGeist said:
There is at least one known A5M, it is in Chuuk Lagoon still in it's crate along with several early A6M aircraft, which are also disassembled.
Click to expand...
Thanks GrauGeist,

I vaguely remember something about this crated A5M Claude still in the hold of a sunken Maru in Chuuk lagoon.

Can't find the document I would have created if it were true. That is not to say it isn't true just I can't verify at the moment. Do have info about a couple of Yokosuka E14Y Glen floaplanes in a sunken Maru there..

But thanks for the heads up and I will report back if I locate further info on the "crated A5M Claude".

Moky for JEC
 
re crated A5M and A6M

I have not seen any reports of any crated A5M or A6M on board any of the cargo ships at the bottom of the Chuuk lagoon, but there have been photos of uncrated A6Ms in the hold of the Fujikawa Maru posted online (identified as A6M via aircraft data plates).
 
Fujikawa Maru is the ship that contains the A5M and three A6Ms in her foreward hold.

All four aircraft were disassembled for shipping and with the passage of time underwater, their containers (crates) would have deteriorated.
 
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