"jack" fighter plane

[ralphwiggum]

I AM sorry to ask so many questions but, (there's no books on the Japanese Air force in my area) so here I go How did the "Jack" fighter compare to
contemporary allied fighters? ie turning, speed, manueverability and so on
Thanks everyone!

[FLYBOYJ]

Mitsubishi J2M - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[HoHun]

Hi Ralph,

>I AM sorry to ask so many questions but, (there's no books on the Japanese Air force in my area) so here I go How did the "Jack" fighter compare to
contemporary allied fighters? ie turning, speed, manueverability and so on

From a quick look at the TAIC data on the Jack, comparing it to the BuAer data on the F6F, I'd say the J2M was slightly faster, significantly better climbing and clearly more manoeuvrable than the F6F-5 at least.

Now TAIC data is wartime intelligence and where in error likely to err on the side of caution, but the J2M weighed in at 7080 lbs compared to the F6F's 12740 lbs while the engines were roughly comparable (1870 HP take-off power for the J2M, 2000 HP for the F6F-5), so I think the above conclusions are fairly reliable.

(Food for thought: Under combat load, the F6F-5 is listed with a load factor of just 6.6 in the BuAer data. Never noticed that before!)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[TenGunTerror]

It actually matched up well against allied fighters and surprised the heck out of them as it was the first Jap plane with speed and climb rate coming before maneuverability. It simply came too late in the war to make a difference. Sorry that's all I know

[renrich]

The J2M is another example of an airplane on paper that looked good but the reality did not match up. According to "Aircraft of World War Two" was " a fundamentally good design that never quite made the grade." " It was beset by structural failures, engine problems and production difficulties." Vmax was 371 mph. "The Great Book of WW2 Airplanes" says, "Problems with the engine and related vibration delayed it's accepetance by the Navy until Oct. 1942." " Although it retained the undesirable features of poor visibility, engine vibration and short flight duration, it's outstanding speed and climb made "Jack" the most successful fighter used against the B29."

[Watanbe]

I think a problem with all the later Japanese designs is the lack of quality materials and skilled manufacturing. They resorted to desperate circumstances to produce planes. I imagine that a well built one produced with the correctly specified materials would of been a real handful for any Allied pilot, but encountering one as such is a different matter.

[proton45]

I'm pulling this out of my bad memory...but I think that Jiro Horikoshi complained (in his book) that the Navy big wigs kept pulling the resources he needed to properly develop the J2M. The Navy pressed him into "up-dating" the aging A6M so that it could "keep-up". Horikoshi was very frustrated that he was not allowed the time to work the bugs out of the J2M...as he had been given the time develop the A6M.

[renrich]

Proton, the conditions you mentioned were also mentioned in one of my sources. The Japanese seemed to always have difficulties with developing higher powered engines. If one thinks about it, the best designs in WW2 all had outstanding engines. Having said that, I have read that captured Zekes tested by the US seemed to have been well constructed and the engines were reliable in that particular model. One thing we know is that the Japanese know how to build reliable and powerful engines today at least in autos.

[Soren]

I think the only real area where the Japs were truly behind from the start of the conflict until the end was in tank design. God their tanks sucked!

[Watanbe]

Originally Posted by renrich

Proton, the conditions you mentioned were also mentioned in one of my sources. The Japanese seemed to always have difficulties with developing higher powered engines. If one thinks about it, the best designs in WW2 all had outstanding engines. Having said that, I have read that captured Zekes tested by the US seemed to have been well constructed and the engines were reliable in that particular model. One thing we know is that the Japanese know how to build reliable and powerful engines today at least in autos.

A lot of their reliability in cars and manufacturing arose from what they learned in WW2 producing Aircraft.

The Japanese built tanks for Jungle fighting, I reckon had they been in the European theatre they could of produced some good designs. Imagine them coming up against a Tiger in a large European field, the guys in the Tiger would just close the lid, sit back and laugh.

[Messy1]

To add a comment about the availability of materials for Japanese planes, I have a Flight journal where a Zero is test flown, and the author commented about the simpleness of the planes, IIRC, the cockpits were completely open below the pilot. The thing that caught my attention the most was the author was very surprised to notice that the wheel flaps were opened and closed by the use of lengths of bamboo that upon opening or closing would contact a catch or hook on the wheel flap when the wheel opened or closed. Just really was hard for me to imagine Japans premier fighter throughout most of the war used bamboo rods to actuate wheel flaps. That really stuck with me, and explains a lot of how Japanese planes were built, using anything available because the materials were not always available, even for something as simple as a steel rod to open/close the flaps. can you imagine trying to develop a new, better plane in this environment?

[Deanimator]

It was somewhat similar to the Hawker Tempest in that it was plagued by structural problems which were never completely resolved.

The Japanese had quality control issues before the B-29 bombing campaign started. After that, it was all downhill.

[Messy1]

Quality issues along with material supply issues in a country who has very few natural resources and you have ill have hard times trying to develop new aircraft in that environment.

[proton45]

Originally Posted by renrich

Proton, the conditions you mentioned were also mentioned in one of my sources. The Japanese seemed to always have difficulties with developing higher powered engines. If one thinks about it, the best designs in WW2 all had outstanding engines. Having said that, I have read that captured Zekes tested by the US seemed to have been well constructed and the engines were reliable in that particular model. One thing we know is that the Japanese know how to build reliable and powerful engines today at least in autos.

Ya, agreed...aeroplanes with development problems are pretty common throughout history... If you looked at the amount of time and money that is spent today, by our own government, in aeroplane development it would be astounding. Japan pretty much lacked "time" and resources...However, despite the problems they had with engine heat, and vibration (at certain RPM), the TAIC report still found the J2M3 to be one of Japan's best fighters.