Japanese aircraft were behind in timing to Allied aircraft. (2 Viewers)

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Getting back to the main subject of discussion, the official report on the progress of Japanese aircraft engineering from TAIC was that they were ahead in some areas, about equal in many, and behind in many areas. The report did not mention specifically which areas that the Japanese were ahead in or what they were behind in, but an anecdotal report provided by someone who interviewed several Australian TAIC mechanics briefly stated that the main area in which the Japanese lagged behind by "years" was in propeller design, although the Japanese were using licensed VDM and Standard-Hamilton propellers.

The area in which they were significantly ahead was in light aircraft construction techniques and technology. Some reports mentioned that they had developed a special alloy which wasn't put into mass production by the allies until 1945 (alu 7075). They had also pioneered other kinds of construction techniques, such as an integral wing, flush riveting, and in Jiro Horikoshi's words, lowering the "safety factor" of combat aircraft. Horikoshi was very proud of having done the mathematical calculations that (he believed) indicated that aircraft were being overbuilt. By reducing the safety factor he believed that he could lower the weight of an aircraft without compromising its safety. He further claimed that the aircraft industry now adopted his modified safety factor rating.
 
We can further look at some aspects of warplanes.
The Japanese seem to have been pretty up on aerodynamics, streamlining/low drag. Maybe not P-51 level but pretty good.
Cooling of air cooled engines, pretty good but spent too much time chasing pointed noses with long propeller-shafts.
The US had gone through some of that with P-66 and the XP-42 a couple of years before. I am not sure anybody really agrees with the prop-spinners on on Radial engines?
The problem here is when does the prop-spinner hurt and when does it help and we are crossing over streamlining and cooling. And access for maintenance.
Development of exhaust thrust.

yes you get exhaust thrust, amount of extra drag is subject to question though?
As in, there was an improvement, could a different arrangement have gotten a better improvement?

Armament, couple of aspects here,
One is just shoving more guns in (US was a champ at this)
another was designing or buying good guns and ammo for best effect for weight and cost ( US not so good here, not so good at all) USSR was pretty good at it.

Then you have to integrate this stuff, If you are #1 in area but #4 or #5 in other areas things are not going to well. (US did well at a number of things and covered up the gun problem)

And we have manufacturing infrastructure, it doesn't matter if you can design it, you need to manufacture it. Doesn't do any good to design the worlds best engine that needs a lot of nickel if you don't have nickel. You can scream and pound on the table about how good the design is, you have wasted all that design time when you should have been designing something you could actually build.
 
GrauGeist said:
Aside from that - his spinner to cowl formula, designed to cool the engine and oil in an annular radiator, created additional thrust.
Click to expand...
He went through a steep learning curve
P
The prototype had serious overheating issues. Early production aircraft also suffered from overheating and it took a while to sort out.
 
V1 and V2 were powered by a BMW139, which had overheating problems.
It was V5 (there was no V3 or V4) that was powered by the BMW801, that had the annular radiator and cooling intake system that production Fw190s used.

V1 first flew in summer 1939, V5 first flew in spring 1940 - so it didn't take very long.
 
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