Experimental WW2 Japanese fighter plane, the Kyushu J7W Shinden

The Shinden was a plane first conceptualized by the Japanese military in 1943, and first flown on a test flight in 1945. Even before the test flight, the Japanese Navy had ordered production of the plane. However Japan’s surrender in 1945 stopped production, and in the end only two of the planes were produced. One was scrapped, and the other was taken to the US for study by the American government.

The Shinden was to have been used as a short ranged, land based interceptor to protect the Japanese mainland. It had high maneuverability, and was armed with four 30mm Type 5 Autocannons, and could carry up to four 130lb bombs. (I believe the bombs would have been Type 2 No.6 Model 5s, but I can not confirm.)

A replica of the plane was made for the movie Godzilla Minus One. After filming, the replica plane was donated to the Tachiarai Peace Memorial Museum in Chikuzen, Fukuoka, Japan.

Wings Of The Rising Sun by Mark Chambers.

Wikipedia page.

JJROKCZ,

A little know fact is that the one that was “scrapped” was actually lost fighting giant sea creatures!

setsneedtofeed, (edited )
@setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world avatar

It’s just crazy that the plane in the movie was not just a drawing board design taken from history, but the real thing had actually flown and actually impressed the Japanese military with its capability. Usually weird WW2 designs in movies either never existed outside of blueprints, or didn’t work in real life.

Zonetrooper,
@Zonetrooper@lemmy.world avatar

…and thus became fodder for Imperial Japan what-if wankery everywhere.

The nose and cockpit section of the fuselage is on display in the National Air and Space Museum in Virginia. “Other parts” are preserved in storage, although it is unclear if they mean the remaining fuselage, engine, and wings, or if those were destroyed following examination.

setsneedtofeed,
@setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, no other nation had a fighter plane folded over 1000 times.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • historyporn@lemmy.world
  • localhost
  • All magazines
  • 200 @ entry_single
    HTTP status 200 OK
    Route name entry_single
    Has session yes
    Stateless Check no
    Time 856 ms
    Total time 856 ms
    Initialization time 119 ms
    Memory 14.0 MiB
    Peak memory usage 14.0 MiB
    PHP memory limit 128 MiB
    Cache 1
    Number of forms 1
    Number of errors 0
    Logger 90
    Errors 0
    Warnings 0
    Deprecations 90
    Cache 71 in 390.55 ms
    Cache Calls 71
    Total time 390.55 ms
    Cache hits 40 / 71 (56.34%)
    Cache writes 24
    641
    Default locale en
    Missing messages 641
    Fallback messages 0
    Defined messages 149
    Security n/a
    Authenticated No
    Firewall name main
    Twig 556 ms
    Render Time 556 ms
    Template Calls 126
    Block Calls 82
    Macro Calls 6
    84 in 469 ms
    settings_row_switch 15
    user_avatar 14
    date 7
    user_inline 6
    date_edited 5
    vote 5
    boost 5
    entry_comment 4
    entry_comments_nested 4
    user_settings_row_switch 4
    settings_row_enum 2
    entry 1
    entries_cross 1
    editor_toolbar 1
    user_actions 1
    magazine_box 1
    magazine_sub 1
    related_magazines 1
    active_users 1
    related_categories 1
    related_posts 1
    related_entries 1
    support_us_block 1
    featured_magazines 1
    22 in 336.85 ms
    Database Queries 22
    Different statements 16
    Query time 336.85 ms
    Invalid entities 0
    Cache hits 31
    Cache misses 4
    Cache puts 4
    6.4.0
    Profiler token c58a6d
    Environment dev
    Debug enabled
    PHP version 8.2.26   View phpinfo()
    PHP Extensions Xdebug ✗ APCu ✓ OPcache ✓
    PHP SAPI apache2handler