Val over Japan ...

[Mark Allen M]

South East of Nagoya city and the Tenpaku river near Urasato and the Oe river. Looks right out of the factory. Date unknown.







And the same photos "convincingly" colorized by HOWDI

[lucky52]

Two questions please.What does that bar under the wing do and what are those protrusions on top of the wing? Thanks.

[AG pilot]

Those photos are amazing.

[JohnB]

The units under the wing are dive brakes.
The photos were taken 1940-41. Early in '42 the IJN started painting the D3A in green camouflage.

[Saville]

Could the protrusions on top be the indicators that the folding wings are properly locked?

[Noha307]

what are those protrusions on top of the wing?

After a brief web search, I can't find any other pictures of Vals with them installed, so I wonder if they could be removable lift points for maintenance. Given that, as Mark guessed, this appears to be the first flight of at least this particular airframe (no identifying markings of any type, the telescopic gunsight, presumably government furnished equipment, is not installed) maybe they just finished erecting the airplane and neglected to take them off.

[lmritger]

The bar beneath the wing is an extendible dive brake (the whole affair pivots 90 degrees downwards along the axis of the spar to essentially form a big board sticking into the airstream), while the mounts atop the starboard wing I believe are for a gun camera mount... early Bf 109s had a similar setup. The photos were taken by Kihei Kitigawa sometime in 1940; I saw these when they were posted on Facebook a couple months ago, and it seems these were taken in the vicinity of the Aichi plant itself during a test flight.

Lynn