Foreign aircrafts in Japan

[gekho]

The Hanriot HD.14 was a military trainer aircraft produced in large numbers in France during the 1920s. It was a conventional, two-bay biplane with unstaggered wings of equal span. The pilot and instructor sat in tandem, open cockpits, and the fuselage was braced to the lower wing with short struts. The main units of the fixed tailskid undercarriage were divided, each unit carrying two wheels, and early production examples also had anti-noseover skids projecting forwards as well.

In 1922, production shifted to a much improved version, known as the HD.14ter or HD.14/23. This featured a smaller wing area, and revised tail fin, interplane and cabane struts, and fuselage cross-section. The landing gear track was narrowed in order to facilitate the aircraft's loading onto the standard army trailer of the day.
Incredibly prolific (the Aéronautique Militaire alone operated 1,925 examples), it was also licence-produced by Mitsubishi in Japan, where another 145 were built.

 

[gekho]

The Nieuport 24 introduced a new fuselage of improved aerodynamic form, rounded wingtips, and a tail unit incorporating a small fixed fin and a curved rudder. The tailskid was sprung internally and had a neater appearance than that on earlier Nieuports. A 130 hp Le Rhône rotary engine was fitted. In the event, there were problems with the new tail, and most production aircraft of the type were of the Nieuport 24bis model, which retained the fuselage and wings of the 24, but reverted to the Nieuport 17 type tailplane, tailskid and rectangular balanced rudder. The new tail was finally standardised on the Nieuport 27. The Nieuport 24 was built at Tokorosawa as the Ko.3 after the end of the war, replacing the SPAD XIII in the Japanese Army Air Force.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Nice!

 

[Micdrow]

You may also find this old link intersting gekho

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ai...foreign-aircraft-japanese-markings-10759.html

 

[gekho]

The NiD was an equal-span biplane with ailerons on both upper and lower wings. It had a fixed tailskid landing gear, a nose-mounted engine and a single open cockpit for the pilot. The prototype NiD 29 first flew on the 21 August 1918 powered by a Hispano-Suiza 8Fb engine piston engine, it performed well in test but could not achieve the required ceiling. The second prototype was modified with an increased wingspan and on achieving the required ceiling it was ordered into production in 1920, becoming the fastest service fighter in the world at that time. Production aircraft did not have ailerons on the upper wing and the lower wing ailerons were increased in size.

The first deliveries were made in 1922 to the French Air Force and the type was popular although it did have a tendency to enter a flat spin. The French military bought 250 aircraft which were built by Nieuport and seven other companies. The Ni-D 29 was to become an important fighter in the 1920s with purchases of 30 by Spain (including 10 Spanish licence built aircraft), 108 by Belgium (87 licensed built by SABCA). The Italian Regia Aeronuatica bought 175 aircraft including 95 built by Macchi as the Macchi-Nieuport 29 and 80 built by Caproni. Sweden bought nine aircraft and designated them J 2. The Japanese company Nakajima bought a pattern aircraft and built 608 for the Imperial Japanese Army as the Ko-4.

 

[gekho]

More pics

 

[vikingBerserker]

Great post! I never know Japan used the Nieuport N-29.

 

[Gnomey]

Good stuff!!

 

[gekho]

The Messerschmitt Me 210 was a German heavy fighter and ground-attack aircraft of World War II. The Me 210 was designed to replace the Bf 110 in heavy fighter role; design started before the opening of World War II. The first examples of the Me 210 were ready in 1939, but they proved to have poor flight characteristics from serious, unanticipated design flaws. A large-scale operational testing program throughout 1941 and early 1942 did not cure the aircraft's problems. The design eventually entered limited service in 1943, but was almost immediately replaced by its successor, the Messerschmitt Me 410 Hornisse ("Hornet"). The Me 410 was a further development of the Me 210, renamed so as to avoid the 210's notoriety. The failure of the Me 210's development program meant that the Luftwaffe was forced to continue fielding the outdated Bf 110, to mounting losses.

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service received one aircraft (Me 210A-2 W.Nr.2350) bought in Germany for tests and delivered by U-boat.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Excellent!

 

[johnbr]

Bf109E-7, Japan, 1941 Five Bf109s were sent to Japan, sans armament, for evaluation. While in Japan they received the standard Japanese hinomarus and yellow wing leading edges, as well as white numerals on the rudder. A red band outlined in white is around the rear fuselage. Study of the Bf109 in Japan led to the design of the formidable Ki-61 Hein.

 

[Shinpachi]

Nice photo and research, johnbr.

Its hit-and-run concept was immediately inherited to Nakajima Ki-44 but army pilots did not understand it well.