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Nakajima B5N Kate''

1,326 THEOKPILOT  one month ago
Auto Credit Based on THEOKPILOT's Torpedo bomber V2

The Nakajima B5N (Japanese: ?? B5N, Allied reporting name "Kate") was the standard carrier-based torpedo bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) for much of World War II. It also served as a high level bomber. Although the B5N was substantially faster and more capable than its Allied counterparts, the American Douglas TBD Devastator monoplane (the U.S. Navy's first all-metal, carrier-borne monoplane of any type with retracting gear), and the British Fairey Swordfish and Fairey Albacore torpedo biplanes, it was nearing obsolescence by 1941. Nevertheless, the B5N operated throughout the whole war, due to the delayed development of its successor, the B6N. In the early part of the Pacific War, when flown by well-trained IJN aircrews and as part of well-coordinated attacks, the B5N achieved particular successes at the battles of Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, and Santa Cruz Islands. None of the 1,150 production B5Ns survived World War II intact. Only two partially-recovered B5Ns are known to exist, neither of them airworthy. Replicas of the B5N2s were made using stretched fuselages from U.S. Canadian Car and Foundry "Harvard" - a variant of the North American T-6 Texan trainers, which were modified to represent Japanese aircraft for the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!, and have been used in a number of movies and airshows since to depict the aircraft. One recovered B5N2 is at the Wings Museum in Balcombe, West Sussex, UK.[13] This large portion was recovered from the Kuril Islands by a British private collector in 2003.[citation needed] A B5N was unveiled at the Pacific Aviation Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii on 18 April 2016.[14]

General Characteristics

  • Predecessor Torpedo bomber V2
  • Created On Windows
  • Wingspan 84.6ft (25.8m)
  • Length 51.3ft (15.6m)
  • Height 18.7ft (5.7m)
  • Empty Weight 16,364lbs (7,422kg)
  • Loaded Weight 28,328lbs (12,849kg)

Performance

  • Horse Power/Weight Ratio 0.07
  • Wing Loading 25.3lbs/ft2 (123.7kg/m2)
  • Wing Area 1,117.8ft2 (103.8m2)
  • Drag Points 4624

Parts

  • Number of Parts 58
  • Control Surfaces 5
  • Performance Cost 425