I'm curious if anybody has some technical and performance data various Japanese fighters, even WWII Aircraft Performance is kind of light on this area. Also, it's all too common to see the most popular variant listed in performance, but not all of them (and the most numerous variant wasn't always in all the decisive battles).
What I'm particularly interested in are the following
- Mitsubishi A5M Claude
- How much difference is there in speed between the variants?
- 252 mph (A5M1) - 270 mph (A5M4) Published.
- Is there any significant difference in engine-power settings, critical-altitudes, or service-ceilings? You betcha: 630 hp./1,500 m (A5M1) - 785 hp./3,000 m (A5M4)
- Kawasaki Ki-10 Perry
- How much difference is there in speed between the variants? 12.5 mph seems a number commonly cited, but I'm not sure if the early models did 236, or 248.5 with the later versions doing 248.5 or 261 mph. Admittedly 261 seems a bit high for a biplane, but the F3F could do around 264 mph. Ki.10-I: 248.5 mph. - Ki.10-I Kai: 261 mph.
- Is there any significance critical altitudes, or service ceilings between variants?
- Ki.10-I & Ki.10-Kai: 32,810 ft. Ki.10-II: 37,730 ft.
- Russian tests according to their graphs give a top speed of 233 mph./4,375 m.
- Nakajima Ki-27 Nate/Abdul
- The service ceiling data seems a bit bizarre: 10040 meters was one figure I saw, which comes out to 32940', and the other was around 12150 or 12250 which is in the ball park of 40,000 feet. Odd, neither William Greene nor Rene Francillon wish to commit here...???
- Most figures list a top-speed of around 292 mph, though others seem to include around 270 mph: Is this a discrepancy due to variants, power-settings, or other?
- Does anything have anything on engine power & critical altitudes with variants?
- I used to be anything so: 710 hp./T.O., 780 hp./2,900 m.
- Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar
- Does anybody have any rate-of-climb and critical altitude figures for the Ki-43-I?
- Sorry, not at this time.
- I've heard some discrepancies in climb-rates for the Ki-43-II. Some sources list around 3900 fpm, other data sources seem to indicate around 3600-3750
- I'm going with the TAIC reports: In the 1944 report they calculated the maximum
- climb rate at 3,590 fpm./2,439 m. In the revised 1945 report they stated maximum
- climb to be 3,365 fpm./2,895 m.
I know that's a lot of stuff to request,
Yep, but it was fun.
and while I'm at it, I'm also curious if there's any websites that have access to this data.
Yusta could (warbirdsforum).
As a general rule I would go to the World War II Aircraft Performance site,
Excellent move, those gentlemen are superlative.
but there's very little information available on some of the early variants.