Kamikaze Bomber First flight: 1945 Nakajima

Ki-115 Tsurugi. 剣 Tsurugi (Sword) is a special assault aircraft for kamikaze attacks. Developed in conjunction with Ota Seisakusho (a subsidiary of the Nakajima Corporation), under the leadership of Aori Kunihara. Despite the fact that the aircraft was designed for one-way flight, the wing was made quite modern - from duralumin alloys. However, the load on the wing, as it turned out later, was great, the plane simply could not take off. In the second version, the simplest flaps were installed, which increase the wing lift at low flight speeds. Two prototypes with powder accelerators were developed, but nothing is known about their tests.

The fuel tank with a capacity of 450 liters, located in the fuselage, was supposed to provide a range of 1000 - 1200 km. A tubular oil cooler in a special fairing was attached to the bottom right, between the hood and the wing.

The landing gear of the aircraft was supposed to be dropped after take-off, but the lack of brakes forced to use the help of the escorts when taxiing to the final start. On the modified version, it was necessary to apply brakes and simple shock absorbers.

The high load on the wing made it necessary to develop the simplest flaps for takeoff, reinforce the wing and provide for a system for their release - cleaning during takeoff.

Powerplant . As a power plant, it was possible to use various, mainly outdated or exhausted, engines, the design of the engine mount allowed this. However, all bombers produced by Nakajima were equipped with a radial 14-cylinder two-row air-cooled engines Ha-35 type 23 with a capacity of 1150 hp. from. with a three-blade metal propeller of constant pitch, 2.9 m in diameter.

The Ki-115 dashboard contained the simplest set of instruments: a magnetic compass, speed and altitude indicator, direction indicator, combined with a slip indicator, engine tachometer, in the upper right, under the glare glass, there should be a variometer.

Weapons . One bomb weighing up to 800 kg, inclusive, was suspended under the fuselage. A simple telescopic sight was inserted into the windshield, which made it easier to aim the aircraft at the target at the time of the attack.

In total, 105 Ki-115 aircraft were built before the end of the war, including 1 prototype, 22 copies at the Yavato plant and 82 at the Ota plant. Despite the rather large production volumes, not a single aircraft took part in combat operations, moreover, the Americans learned about the existence of this kamikaze bomber after the war.

Photo	Description
	Drawing Ki-115 Tsurugi
	Ki-115 Tsurugi, 3/4 front view.

Bibliography

• "Japan Aviation." /A. Firsov /
• "Encyclopedia of military engineering " /Aerospace Publising/
• "Japan Warplanes of World War II" /Oleg Doroshkevich/