FB26 MITSUBISHI KI-15 KAMIKAZE

The Mitsubishi Ki-15 was a Japanese WWII training aircraft. The prototype's flight took place in 1936, and the machine went into production a year later. In total, about 500 copies of this aircraft were built. The length of the machine - in the Ki-15-I version - was 8.7 m with a wingspan of 12 meters. The drive was provided by a single Nakajima Ha-8 engine with a maximum power of 640 HP. The maximum speed of the aircraft oscillated around 480 km / h. The deck armament consisted of a single 7.7 mm machine gun. The machine could also carry a bomb weighing up to 250 kilograms. The Mitsubishi Ki-15 was originally developed for the Imperial Japanese Army as a two-seater reconnaissance aircraft with a high maximum speed. The machine resembled other planes of this type, such as Heinkel He-70 or Northrop Alpha. In total, three main production versions of this aircraft were created: Ki-15-I (first production version), Ki-15-II (version with a new engine) and Ki-15-III (version with the Mitsubishi Ha-102 engine, which, however, was created only as a prototype copy). The planes were used very intensively during the Second Japanese-Chinese War (1937-1945), but by 1943 they were withdrawn from the front line. However, at the end of the war, they returned to service as kamikaze planes.