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Originally Posted by GT Letīs leave the Us testing and see what combat history the Hayate had. The Army fighters Ki-84-1as that fought in Leyte with 1, 11 22, 29, 51, 52, 71, 72 and 200th Sentais and proved itself to be a redoubtable adversary and Ki 841a could out-climb and outmaneuver all Allied fighters, and at medium and low altitude it was as fast as the P-51D and P-47D and Ki 84 1a was faster than all other Allied aircraft's.
Because the Hayate was so enthusiastically received by operational pilots the improved Ki 84 was fitted with various models of the Ha-45, culminating in the model 23 (Ha-45-23) a modification of the more common Army Type 4 Model (Ha-45-21), fitted with a low-pressure fuel injection-system engine and that was after the operations in the Philippines. GT |
Leaving out the Ki-84 rebuilt at the Middletown Air Depot in Pennsylvanial and tested using 140 av-gas at Clark field, the performance of the plane was:
392 mph @ 20,080 feet, cruising speed was 277 mph, and climb to 16,405 feet was 5 mins 54 secs. Ceiling was 34,450 feet, and range was 1,347 miles (with drop tank).
Ten Sentais were equiped with the Ki-84 in the Philapines and were soundly defeated by US fighters. There is no huge spike in US losses to indicate this was a "super plane" as you describe it to be.
The Frank did do moderately well in the China theater, where it faced P-40's and relatively few P-51A's and very few P-51B's of General Chennault's 14th Air Force.
As for being faster than the US planes, it was faster than the P-40, but slower than the P-51, which was capable of 405 mph on the deck (using +25 lbs boost). Climbrate of the P-51B was 6 mins 20 seconds to 20,000 feet, making it somewhat superior in climb over the Frank. The P-51D, fully loaded with fuel (-25 gallons in the rear tank) climbed to 20k in 7.3 minutes, making it about equal to the Frank. The F4U-1d of 1944 equaled or exceeded the Ki-84 in almost every catagory except low speed turn, and the F4U-4 exeeded it in every catagory except low speed turn. The low pressure fuel system of the Franks worked poorly, and was known to cut out spontaneously, especially in turns, largely negating the "turn advantage" this plane was supposed to have. High altitude performance was poor.
Finally, while much better armored than earlier Japanese fighters, the Ki-84 was still not a rugged aircraft by comparision with US fighters. The 12-13 mm seat bucket is hand pounded and welded from obviousluy mild steel. The armor glass was virtually always removed so the pilot could actually see forward. The self-sealing fuel tanks were of little use against .50 class ammo. And finally, the plane was of light construction making it generally suceptable to quick damage from .50 class hits.
The Frank was a big improvement over earlier Japanese aircraft, but it still didn't even the playing field vs. the first line US fighters it faced.
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