Planes of Fame Zero

Thanks EG, I expect they were headed back home. It was exciting to see that legendary airplane. Sure screwed up my concentration on golf. I had seen a Zeke on the ground in Dallas many years ago but never seen one in the air. It is a beautiful airplane. Very clean and graceful looking. I am not too sure that the Zeke is not WW2s most beautiful airplane, second only to the Spitfire, IMO.

GregP said:

Just for information, the Sakae 21 was designed (after acquiring a license for the Feench Gnome-Ghone) by Nakajima and was built by several manufactureres including Mistubishi ... just as the Zero was designed by Mitsubishi and was built by several companies inclduing Nakajima. So ... we are flying a Mistsubishi aircraft with a Mistubishi engine.

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Nakajima indeed had Gnome-Rhone K14 engine licensed but Sakae design is much different from it. Sakae is really very close to P&W Twin Wasp engines design nevertheless it hadn't "square" bare/stroke ratio.

Also its a mistake that Sakae were ever produced by Mitsubishi. Sakae engines were produced by Nakajima, Kawasaki Ishikawajima and thats ALL!

If any of you get to Southern California and can come to Chino airport (Planes of Fame) on any Saturday, I'd be happy to show you around,

Our A6M5 Model 52 Zero is only one of our Japanese planes. We have an MXY7 Ohka suicide rocket (or Bakka Bomb), a J2M Raiden (the last of its kind in the world), a Betty bomber displayed in "as crashed" condition, an Aichi D3a "Val" torpedo plane that is being slowly restored to flying condition, and are restoring a Yokosuka D4Y "Judy" dive bomber to static runable condition (the Judy is one of two in the world). We also have a US made Stewart tank taht has been modified to look like a Japanese light tank. When Hollywood needs a Japanese light tank for a movie, they usually use ours. Our flyable "Val" is one of the Troa, Tora, Tora Vals made from a BT-13.

Of our Japanese planes, only the Zero is flyable (the fake Val, too), though the intent is to make the real Val flyable. I'd love to restore the J2M Raiden, but we can only support so many projects at the same time. Maybe down the pike ...

Of course, there are other planes, too, but these are the japanese planes. Come see us! All are welcome and I'd like to meet any of you anyway. I already hosted Romatic Technofreak here from Germnay and I daresay he had a decent time, even coming to visit once during our annual airshow and getting a Mustang at the show.

Sorry Aurum, our Sakae 21 was made by Mitsubishi and they helped get our two examples running again! You are mistaken in this case, and the chairman of Mitsubishic ame over and went for a flight in our P-51 with the Zero, a Corsair, and a B-25 as formation buddies. He was very happy to see a Zero flying next to its adversaires. We could not have gotten our engines running without Mitsubishi support as well as support from Fuji Heavy Industries (Nakajima, in WWII). Both companies helped us.

Cheers!

GregP said:

If any of you get to Southern California and can come to Chino airport (Planes of Fame) on any Saturday, I'd be happy to show you around

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I plan on being there for Chino air show this year. Maybe we can meet up with evangilder and any other members who will be there for a nice tall draft.

I wouldnt mind making it down that way again...It was great meeting Evan last year...

I'll be at Chino on Saturday this year. If things work out, I may be flying in the pre-show.

GregP said:

Sorry Aurum, our Sakae 21 was made by Mitsubishi and they helped get our two examples running again! You are mistaken in this case,...
Cheers!

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Sorry, GregP but I do not understand how it can be. I have allot of statistics and american US Strategic Bombing Survey figures definitely Mitsubishi ones non of them says that either one Nakajima Sakae engine (the same as any other, Homare for ex.) was ever produced by Mitsubishi at war time!

If you say that POF had 2 Sakaes and both are Mitsubishi produced, can you take photo post here the stencil of on of them?

Aurum said:

Sorry, GregP but I do not understand how it can be. I have allot of statistics and american US Strategic Bombing Survey figures definitely Mitsubishi ones non of them says that either one Nakajima Sakae engine (the same as any other, Homare for ex.) was ever produced by Mitsubishi at war time!

If you say that POF had 2 Sakaes and both are Mitsubishi produced, can you take photo post here the stencil of on of them?

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"A total of 21,166 were made by Nakajima; 9,067 were manufactured by other firms." It seems at least Ishikawajima was one of the "other" firms. It would not surprise me if Mitsubishi produced Sakaes.

EDIT - ooops - already mentioned

Hi Aurum,

I'll se what I can do with the engine pics. The Sakae in the Zero is not very vivible behjind the spinner and the "spare" Sakae 21 is in pirces. We were planning on assembling it to hang on our Judy, but they went with a DC-3 engine in the event because it is the right diameter for the airframe ... so the spare Sakae 21 is still in pieces. I'll ask about getting a shot of the crankcase. Just for tehr ecord, I was told that the engine in teh Zero is a Mitsubishi and the docents said teh spare was, too. I have never seen the crankcase placards up close due to the spinner and the desiire of teh staff for us volunteers not to bother teh Zero too much since it is the crown jewel of our collection (according to some ...).

As for the rest of you, I'll be working the airshow Satuday and Sunday, but we can agree to meet somehwere on either day between now and then. I'd love to meet any and all of you in here. Nice to hear that we may have a participant in our midst, too! Maybe we could all meet on Friday, watch practice, have lunch, and take a tour of Joe Yancey's Allison shop.

Cheers!

That is another historical fact, Aurum, not during the war but in the postwar.
History continues.

Frankly, I am interested in if they, Mitsubishi and Fuji, billed POF later.
In Japan, Mitsubishi bill everytime they restore.
Fuji is not cooperative about restoring projects from the beginning.

Could there have been confusion about a "Mitsubishi Built" Sakae as one of the plants that built the engine was named "Musashi," possibly confused with "Mitsubishi"?

Hey Greg, do you have any pictures of the Val? I'm really interested in that one!

Ah, and anyone knows about the B5N recovered in the Kuriles, in 2005 if I'm not wrong, there are plans to restore it? I would be wounderful to see one flying again!