Ki-115 at Pima

[Michel Lemieux]

Ki-115 at Pima

Anyone seen this? Right beside the dual cockpit Ohka trainer

Found on https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/9004626

[JohnTerrell]

In one of the Smithsonian "In the Cockpit" books I have, they have a photo from the cockpit of this airframe, and it is pretty scary, like something my friends and I built in the backyard as kids - extremely crude and rudimentary, though of course it was not intended to last long/only to be flown on one, one-way mission, designed/built during a very desperate time for the Japanese. The main landing gear was designed to be jettisoned after takeoff.

Last edited by JohnTerrell on Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Snake45]

Very cool!

I always thought this airplane would make a great homebuilt project. Or something obviously "inspired by" it.

[mike furline]

Looking forward from tail wheel.

[Michel Lemieux]

Wow....basic and crude you say!!!!!

Tks for the detailed pictures

[sandiego89]

Yes, thanks for posting those phots of the interior. Very interesting and chilling.

Bit surprised the Smithsonian lent it to Pima, but much better than it still sitting in the warehouses at Garber.

[Michel Lemieux]

Pima is dry

Seeing how much iron it has I think it is a good choice. And surprized it has not rusted to smithereens yet!

[Jesse C.]

Wow! That is some serious "Little Rascals" ingenuity!

Just amazing that this was preserved to begin with. I wonder what the flight characteristics must have been like.

[Michel Lemieux]

If you trust the Wiki....it was pretty horrible....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Ki-115

Performance

A Ki-115 shortly after the war. Propellers removed to prevent flight.[7]
The aircraft had a top speed of 550 kilometres per hour (340 mph) and could carry a bomb weighing as much as 800 kilograms (1,800 lb), large enough to split a warship in two. However, it was otherwise unarmed, and heavily laden with its bomb, would have been an easy target for enemy fighter aircraft.

The controls were crude, the visibility terrible, and the performance abysmal. Tsurugi had very poor take-off and landing performance and could not be safely flown by anyone other than experienced pilots. There were fatal crashes during testing and training.[3] However new, better versions [3] with improved controls and better visibility were under intensive development. The Japanese High command had plans to construct some 8,000 per month in workshops all across Japan.

The war ended before any flew in combat. Individually, they would have been rather inefficient weapons, but used in waves of hundreds or thousands they could have been quite destructive.

[JohnTerrell]

According to the Smithsonian's description of the aircraft, this surviving airframe was a prototype demonstrator. Part of the Ki-115's design was also to be able to easily accommodate a wide range of surplus/obsolete engine types that could quickly be bolted on. There was no canopy (simply open cockpit), and as I mentioned before, the main gear would be jettisoned after takeoff and it only had a tail skid at the back. There were a number of problems with this (for-kamikaze-use) design which meant that it wouldn't have been effective in its intended role. For one, it was meant to be easy to be flown by inexperienced pilots, but it proved too difficult to handle in the hands of anyone who was not an experienced pilot. Its only armament was a single 800-kilogram bomb bolted to the airframe, though which would have been more effective if it were dropped from the aircraft, rather than the aircraft flying into the target with the bomb attached, as the falling bomb would have reached much higher terminal velocity than the aircraft ever would - provisions were actually made to attach auxiliary rockets to the aircraft, to boost the impact (that's what the two red switches on the instrument panel were for). Flight testing wasn't completed until June 1945, and although more than 100 of these were produced, none saw use in combat.

[Chris Brame]

Is it displayed this way because part of the engine mount is missing, or is it too corroded to support the weight of the engine?
Also, what's the rusty gauge on the top right?

[JohnTerrell]

The crusty gauge that you can no longer see clearly is for the manifold pressure. (The rectangular cutout on the far right of the instrument panel was the location of an inclinometer.)

[marine air]

What was it's allied code name , "Hillary?"

[Rick65]

Even ignoring the intended purpose and the shortcuts taken it is a strange design.
Unusually for a conventionally laid out piston type the fuselage is almost as long as the wing span.
Most similar planes have far larger wing spans than lengths.
Maybe that is another reason that it did not fly well.

[JohnB]

I have a hunch the length/wingspan ratio was not accidental. The Japanese were not that foolish to get something that basic wrong, even for a disposable aircraft.

Remember, the aircraft was a flying bomb.
Perhaps the long fuselage was a result of of cg considerations.

In Francillon's excellent Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War (which should be in everyone's library) he comments that the crude unspring landing gear caused difficulties.