![]() ![]() This modification resulted in a change of designation to Navy Type 0 Carrier Fighter Model 21.ĭuring the first year of the Pacific War, the standard shipboard fighter serving with the US Navy was the Grumman F4F Wildcat. Manually upward-folding wingtips (about 20 inches long) were incorporated so that the plane could fit the deck elevators of the Imperial Navy’s aircraft carriers. Re-engineered with a Nakajima NK1C Sakae 12 (Prosperity) engine ![]() Speed was 305 mph at 12,470 feet – slightly below requirement Two 7.7 mm Type 97 machine guns in the upper fuselage decking Powered by a Mitsubishi Zuisei 13 (Auspicious Star) fourteen-cylinder, twin-row air-cooled radial engine, rated at 780 hp for take off and 875 hp at 11,810 feet. Special attention was paid to weight savings, and a new special aluminium alloy developed by Sumimoto was adopted. The absence of protective equipment – armour plate and self-sealing fuel tanks – that had allowed the Zero to be so agile in combat exposed a weakness that the Americans were able to exploit.Ī: carrier fighter (capable of flying off an aircraft carrier) However, less wing loading meant quicker manoeuvring.Īs the war progressed, the Zero continued to operate without significant improvements, suggesting that Horikoshi’s team had extracted all possible performance from the Zero design.Įventually, it was improvements in American tactics and technology that resulted in the rapid loss of many Zeros and their pilots. Newer American fighters more than doubled the Zero’s horsepower with a commensurate increase in wing loading and performance. The Zero design team used an engine that made around 300 horsepower less than the Pratt & Whitney R-1840 Twin Wasp powering the F4F-4 Wildcat. The engine was located close to a smaller cockpit which helped to save weight, but also made the Zero more manoeuvrable. Its skin was only 1.2 mm thick over its thickest sections like the leading edge of the wing, to 0.5 mm thick over the thinnest sections at the aft of the plane. ![]() New heat treatment knowledge obtained from the Germans allowed Horikoshi to develop an all metal structure, its frame entirely made from this new age hardened aluminium and he cut holes into the frame where possible to reduce weight. Thin elliptical wings minimised drag along with state-of the art flush riveting. Horikoshi knew that key to this was making the fighter as lightweight as possible.ĭesign changes included a one-metre shortening of the main wings from 12 to 11 metres, and incorporated many of the most advanced techniques of the era. His goals were to make the new aircraft as manoeuvrable as possible and to provide it with a range capable of escorting Japanese bombers to China and back. Horikoshi set about designing the Zero with this specification in mind. The plane also needed to be carrier based (capable of flying off an aircraft carrier) which limited its wing span. The new plane was to have a top speed of 500 km/hr, be fitted with two 7 mm machine guns, two 20 mm cannons, be capable of flying 2 hours at max speed and 6–8 hours at crushing speed with drop tanks attached. When the Imperial Japanese Army challenged Mitsubishi and Nakajima to design and build successors to the A5M plane to aid the war effort in China, the specifications were so ambitious that Nakajima pulled out of the bid leaving chief designer Jiro Horikoshi to assemble a team.
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