The Legendary Betty pilot is alive! (1 Viewer)

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Thanks, Arrosihman for your kind comment:)

I received a brief comment from him through his secretary 10 days ago.
She said "He says 'Thank you very much for your all heartful comments'."
 
Because Japanese first hand perspectives are not very know in the West, each of them sounds magical to me. Thanks for sharing.

I think one interesting topic to ask for the Japanese veterans is if they remember the internal colors of their planes. Some Japanese aircraft don't have know evidence avaliable, and the modelers here in the West usually considerate only this, and therefore regard the info as unavaliable. But I think until the guys who flown or produced the planes lived, we can't considerate any information really as unavaliable.
 
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Thanks Jenisch for your post.
If I should have a chance to.

In my impression, however, many older Japanese researchers have done their good jobs through their many interviews with many veterans since the end of ww2.
Actually, I still come across not a few Japanese books about the war, equipments and facts which are not introduced in English yet.

For example, the deck officer of Akagi waved a flag to let aircrafts take-off in the movie of Pearl Harvor but, according to a survivor's testimony, it was not a flag but a lamp stick lit in blue. Such a fact would be invisible for foreign researchers till it is translated...
 
Yeah Shinpachi. I'm a great fan of your country in all aspects, and a lot in the the military one. And I think there's many unfair judgments of Japan here in the West. Some of them simply because people don't understand what exactly was a determined Japanese goal or even the cuture.

One example of the language that came to my mind now is the A6M2 speed. The Japanese manual states the military power was 508 km/h. While the boosted speed appears to have been about 555 km/h. While most of the aviation community here in the West keeps discussing the Japanese data only by second hand Allied test flights. I really don't like from this desconsideration of Japanese sources of their own machines. And there's a lot of it.
 
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It's a good question, Jenisch.
Though I stated this somewhere before, in my knowlege Japanese military aircrafts were designed based on fuel octane 100 but it was 91 in actual operation because of fuel shortage but it was 140 for the allied aircrafts. Mutual test results would have been different as a matter of course.
 
Surely in wartime. The problem is wartime tests keep appearing in publications until today. The A6M2 speed of 533 km/h is perhaps the most famous example.
 
A question: in the photo of the torpedo run, if his Betty was the only to survive, who take the picture, an escort fighter?
 
It sounds like a mystery, Jenisch, but the photo was taken by a US photographer.

I don't know if you are being ironic, but I really didn't thought of this possibiliy. lol

About the G4M being restored: *________*

It's intended to be restored to flyable condition?

Just a shame there's not so much interest about Japanese planes, specially attack aircraft, as we can see this by those wrecks:

right-center.jpg


PNG-Japanese-Nakajima-Ki-49-Hellen-Oct-2002-00.jpg


The first is a G3M, the second a Ki-49. Both which not a single preserved exemplair exists. Already heard something about recover such machines there in Japan Shinpachi?
 
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Hello, Jenisch.

The restoring G4M2 Betty will be for the static display as it is always Mr. Harada's way as an owner but she will be able to fly once start the engines as it is always Mitsubishi's way.

A few years ago, I heard some investors were collecting those wrecks in the southern islands to restore but they were not Japanese. Negotiation with the islanders is not easy because those wrecks are tourism resources for them today.
 
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Great thread Shinpachi-san. I have always been fascinated by the picture of the Betty's on their run so low to the waves. But I never thought I would hear the story behind it. The picture is amazing enough. May he live long.
 
Has Jun Takahashi considered writing about his experiences?
 
Has Jun Takahashi considered writing about his experiences?
That's a thought that has crossed my mind.

It would be a rare perspective into the wartime experience of an Imperial Japanese bomber pilot's service, and while not as "glamorous" as a fighter pilot's career, it would give a good deal of insight to an otherwise little known view of the war.

I hope Mr. Takahashi would consider it.
 
His secretary says "He is busy about his lectures as a flight instructor and spending busier days than ordinary younger staff."
In my impression, he prefers talking to writing. On TV, he said he feels much happier when he talks to young ladies.
I believe he would live more than a hundred years...
 

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