The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia
|
| Previous: C4 Class, U.S. Cargo Ships | Table of Contents | Next: C6N Saiun "Myrt", Japanese Carrier Reconnaissance Aircraft |
Mitsubishi C5M "Babs" (Army: Ki-15)
|
Crew |
2 |
|
Dimensions |
28'6" by 39'5" by 11'3" 8.69m by 12.01m by 3.43m |
| Wing area |
219 square feet 20.3 square meters |
|
Weight |
3781-5170 lbs 1715-2345 kg |
|
Speed |
303 mph at 14,930 feet 488 km/h at 4550 meters |
|
Climb rate |
41 feet per second 12.5 m/s |
|
Ceiling |
31,430 feet 9579 meters |
| One 940 hp (701 kW) Nakajima Sakae 12 fourteen-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, driving a three-blade metal propeller. | |
|
Armament |
One flexible rear-firing 7.7mm Type 89 Special machine gun |
|
Range |
795 miles at 199 mph 1280 km at 320 km/h |
|
Production |
A total of 489 of all variants at Mitsubishi-Nagoya: 439 Ki-15s from 1936-5 to 1940 20 C5M1s in 1938 30 C5M2s in 1940. |
The Mitsubishi "Babs" was known as the C5M when
flown by the Navy and as the Ki-15 when flown by Army pilots. It
was reliable but suffered from appalling forward
visibility. Like
most Japanese aircraft, it was fragile and lacked self-sealing fuel
tanks, and
its relatively low speed for a reconnaissance aircraft caused it to be
withdrawn from service early in the war. However, it was a C5M2 out of French Indochina that
spotted Force Z and sealed its
fate.
The aircraft was well-known in the West even
before war broke out, since the second prototype was sold to Asahi Shinbun for civilian use and
set a speed record in April
1937 during a flight between Japan and England.
The design originated in July 1935 with an Army specification for a
fast reconnaissance aircraft. The first prototype flew in May 1936 and
exceeded all specifications and was pleasant to fly. Its only
weaknesses were its poor forward visibility, somewhat longer
takeoff and landing runs than desired, and a tendency to lose speed
rapidly in turns. The first
production aircraft began to be delivered in May 1937.
Prior to the outbreak of war in the Pacific,
"Babs" was used to great
effect in China, where Japanese air
supremacy meant that it could
pretty much go where it wanted and provide the Japanese army with
excellent intelligence on
Chinese troop movements. Its performance attracted the attention of the
Navy, which lacked high performance reconnaissance aircraft, and the
Navy ordered fifty aircraft for its own use. The Navy often used the C5M as a guide aircraft for fighter formations flying long distance missions in the Netherlands East Indies during the Centrifugal Offensive. After the C5M was withdrawn
from front-line service in the second year of the war, the survivors
were used as trainers, and a few
were eventually expended as kamikazes.
References
The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia © 2007, 2009, 2014 by Kent G. Budge. Index
