NAKAJIMA KI-87 WWII JAPANESE HIGH-ALTITUDE FIGHTER

The Nakajima Ki-87 was a prototype Japanese low-wing fighter plane with a metal structure from the Second World War. The drive was provided by a single engine Nakajima Ha-44-12 with a power of 2,450 hp. The flight of the prototype took place in April 1945 - the machine never entered mass production. The on-board armament consisted of two 20mm Ho-5 cannons and two 30mm Ho-105 cannons. The machine could also carry a load of bombs weighing up to 250 kilograms. Work on the Nakajima Ki-87 aircraft began in June 1942, when the Japanese Army Aviation Command saw the need to have a fighter capable of dealing with - still potential in 1942 - bomb expeditions carried out by the US Air Force to the Japanese Islands. Initially, the new machine was set to extremely ambitious technical and performance assumptions, but after consultations with the Japanese aviation industry and the emergence of the assumptions of the prototype machines, these requirements were lowered, focusing primarily on the maximum speed and rate of climb. It was also decided to use many technological innovations in the Nakajima Ki-87, such as a completely new landing gear retraction mechanism or unconventional positioning of a turbocharger in Japanese aircraft. All this contributed to a significant extension of research and development, and when American bombers actually launched raids on Japanese cities in 1944, the Nakajima Ki-87 was still not a combat capable aircraft. Until the end of the war, only one copy of this machine was created. It was also planned to build a version of the Ki-87-II with a more powerful engine, but these assumptions were not implemented.