I share with you the link below containing a collection of photos, including a rare photo of an airplane captured and with USAAF markings, of the Japanese fighter Kawasaki Ki-100, recognized by many as one of the best, if not the best Japanese fighter designed and built during WW2. Does Ki-100 deserves the fame? What do you think? Visit the link below, see the photos and give your opinion. I hope you enjoy.


http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/02/kawasaki-ki-100-goshikisen.htmle


Cheers.

Taken down for copyright infringement or something? The link doesn't work...

A correct link is here

The only remaining Ki-100 is at the RAF Museum at Cosford and very nice it is too, along with the only remaining Ki-46.

thanks
Mike

The Japanese did extensive mock combat tests with a special protocol. They would fly the Ki-100 with all of the several very experienced combat pilots they had, taking turns gainst their other "best" Army fighter, the Ki-84 Frank.

One on one against the Ki-84, the Ki-100 would always win the "combat". It was not even cLose:

"Aeroplane" November 2005, "Ki-100 fighter Database" p. 61-77. (16 full pages on nothing but the Ki-100, with remarkable details, including on the development of the projected high-altitude turbo-charged variant)

Textual quote : P. 76:

"At these schools, the cream of the IJAAF's instructors, all very experienced combat pilots, would give their opinion on the new fighter (Ki-100). Almost all the Akeno instructors were graduates of the 54th Class of the Army Air Academy and also highly-qualified sentai commanders in their own right.

During March and April they would fly the Ki-100 in comparison tests against the most capable Japanese fighter then in service, the Ki-84 "Frank". After extensive testing the conclusion drawn by the Akeno pilots left little to the imagination.

In short, it stated that given equally skilled pilots, the Ki-100 would ALWAYS win a fight with the Ki-84 in any one-to-one combat. They further added that in a combat situation with up to three Ki-84s, the Ki-100 pilot could still develop the battle to his advantage.

The results of the evaluations at the Hitachi school were just as clear-cut. Captain Yasuro Mazaki and captain Toyoshia Komatso,also both graduates of the 54th class, developed the combat evaluation situations for the new fighter, and in order to give an unbiaised opinion of the aircraft, they swapped aircraft after each engagements and attempted combat from the opposite standpoint.

In the first combat the Ki-100 was flown against a single Ki-84 with the Ki-100 winning outright.

Mazaki stated: "When we entered combat with the Ki-100 taking the height advantage, the Ki-100 won every time. Even with an altitude disadvantage the Ki-100 could hold down the Ki-84 in two or three climbs during the exercise"

He added that the Ki-84 was "only superior to the Ki-100 in diving speed. The Ki-100 was much better in the turn and while climbing."


Against the P-51: "Aeroplane" p.77: "I learned how to take my fighter out of the firing line of the P-51 when being chased. I might never be able to shoot it down, but I was sure I would never be downed!"

P. 77. "The Ki-100 could fight equally against the P-51D"

P. 77. "The maneuverability of the Ki-100 was the best of the Army's frontline fighters with the exception of the Ki-43... And it had a strong advantage in that even less experienced pilots could fly it easily and fight with it."


I would say it deserves its fame far more than most fans of aviation have any idea... Because its on-paper straight-line performance is so unimpressive, the true scale of it advantages are completely underestimated (relatively the same occurs with the Ki-43 Oscar, an aircraft no "theorician" of aviation can understand was kept in production until 1945, except to suggest the Japanese were basically stupid to do so... It does not matter to these "experts" that it had produced more Japanese aces than all other Japanese fighters combined...) This general lack of understanding is large part due to the fiction that maneuverability didn't count late in the war, and that only raw speed mattered for hit and run attacks...: To do "hit and run" you need a crucial element never alluded to by those who hold "hit and run" as the be all and end all of air to air fighting in late WWII -against the observable content of virtually all combat reports of the time, especially in Western Europe- : You need above all a superior altitude, and it also helps to have either high velocity guns or guns that are both high velocity and mounted on the centerline fo the aircraft, thus needing little or no convergence... This myth was widely propagated by a "combat theoretian" named Shaw, who basically cherry picked dive and zoom examples from P-47 combat accounts...

Ironically, if you look at thousands of original combat reports, as I have, you will find few fighters were ever so obsessively used in slow speed horizontal turn fighting -with great success against the Me-109G- as the P-47D... (Not so much against the more slow-speed agile FW-190A)

On the other hand, if you look at the Spitfire, you will see an aircraft that avoided prolonged turnfights like the plague (though it could stall-turn briefly inside, shedding speed), and was one of the few to really use altitude and speed in the vertical plane, as did the Me-109G and P-38 against slower and lower enemies.

The reality was that with a 2% average hit rate, WWII guns were a bit too weak to be used while diving on a target at a constantly changing distance: Centralized guns helped a lot... Even then, with a strong radial engine in front and a powerful armament, turning into a diving attack for a head to head was a common way of levelling the odds against a diving aircraft, a common FW-190A tactic against the P-51, which the Ki-100 could have used as well.

Gaston

Can't edit apparently, but yeah, I realize now it's "theoretician", not "theorician"...

Gaston