Ki-43 “Oscar”, Japanese Fighter

Nakajima Ki-43-Ia Hayabusa ("Peregrine Falcon") “Oscar”

Specifications:

"Oscar" was just coming into production at the time of Pearl Harbor and first entered combat over Malaya and Burma with 64 Air Regiment. Thanks in part to its "butterfly" combat flaps, it was very maneuverable and a deadly dogfighter, proving an unpleasant surprise to Allied pilots. It soon became the most feared Japanese aircraft in Southeast Asia. However, it was badly undergunned and as fragile as most other Japanese fighters. The initial armament of two rifle-caliber machine guns was rapidly upgraded to two heavy machine guns, but this was still inadequate in comparison with Allied fighters carrying at least four heavy machine guns. The -II had some armor and self-sealing fuel tanks, but still tended to disintegrate if it stumbled into 0.50 caliber fire from an Allied aircraft.

"Oscar" was originally designed to be the successor to the Ki-27 "Nate". The design team, led by Koyama Yasumi and Itogawa Hideo, set out to design the lightest possible airframe around the most powerful available radial engine, the Ha-25. The design closely resembled the Nate, except for the use of retracting landing gear. Army test pilots initially criticized the design failing to match the maneuverability of the Nate, which prompted the designers to lighten the airframe, reduce its cross section, and add the butterfly flaps. The Japanese Army was sufficiently pleased with the redesigned Oscar to attempt to set up two more production facilities. However, there were not enough skilled personnel at Tachikawa Dai-Ichi Rikugun Kokusho (Tachikawa First Army Air Arsenal) and production was halted after a small number of airframes were assembled from components. The production facility at Tachikawa Hikoki K.K. was more successful, and more Oscars were produced than any other Japanese fighter model except the A6M Zero.

It took some time to discover that the wings were not strong enough to withstand the most violent maneuvers, and a number of aircraft were lost when their wings collapsed while pulling out of a dive. Efforts to retrofit the existing aircraft to strengthen their wings were not entirely successful, but the problem was largely solved in the -II.

A small number were supplied to the puppet Thai government. Towards the end of the war, after it was superseded by improved fighter designs, "Oscar" was used extensively in kamikaze service.

In many respects "Oscar" resembled an Army version of the Zero, having similar strengths and weaknesses. However, it was even lighter and more maneuverable. On the other hand, "Oscar" was a full 40 miles per hour (60 kilometers per hour) slower than the Zero, making it slower than most Allied fighters. This speed proved inadequate to protect the Army's heavy bombers in China. As one fighter pilot told Bergerud (2000),

You'd be lucky to get one Immelmann out of a Tony starting from an initial flight attitude, whereas an Oscar, it really could do a double, and I saw it happen too many times. I'm not too sure that a Zero, unless he had proper conditions set up, maximum throttle, and all-out level flight, could do it. But I saw an Oscar to several double Immelmanns, even topped off by a hammerhead stall. That's pretty fancy to watch. It was an enormously maneuverable airplane. The Oscar was designed to be an army fighter for the Manchurian and Chinese theaters. It had great maneuverability but with its armament of two machine guns, it wasn't too far from the Sopwith Camel era in some ways.

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References

Bergerud (2000)

Francillon (1979)
Molesworth (2008)

Peattie et al. (2011)

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