Mitsubishi A5M, part one

Note: This is our last post of the year as tomorrow we start out Christmas holidays.
Back in 1934 the Imperial Japanese Navy issued a specification for an advanced fighter with a maximum speed of 350km/h (220mph) at 3000m (9840ft) high and had to be able to climb to 5000m (16400ft) in 6 and half minutes. This specification was called 9-shi and both Nakajima and Mitsubishi submitted designs.
Mitsubishi assigned the task of designing their new fighter to a team lead by Jiro Horikoshi (who designed the unsuccessful Mitsubishi 1MF10 and would also design the successful A6M Zero). The resulting design was called the Mitsubishi Ka-14 which served as the prototype for the A5M.
As the A5M won the contract, an initial production order for 75 aircraft was placed under the designation of Mitsubishi A5M1. It entered service with the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service in 1937 and soon was involved in the aerial battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War including the ones versus the Chinese Boeing P-26C, in the world first aerial dogfight between metallic monoplanes.
The A5M1 was the first production model which was produced from 1936 (when the prototype flew for the first time) until June 1937. Seventy-five exemplars were manufactured all of them by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagoya, Japan. It was designed to operate from carriers and was powered by a single Nakajima Kotobuki 2 KAI 1 nine-cylinder air-cooled single-row radial which delivered a power of 572hp for taking off and 621hp at 1500m (4920ft) high. That engine drove a two-bladed metallic propeller.
It was armed with two fixed synchronized forward-firing 7,7mm (0,303in) Type 89 machine guns placed in the nose with 500 rounds.
The A5M1 was quickly replaced by the improved version A5M2 and, by 1938, there wasn't any active A5M1 serving with the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service and it received the Allied reporting name of "Claude".

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A5M
2. https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/28828
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Messerschmitt Me.210, Foreign users

The Messerschmitt Me.210 was a German heavy fighter that was originally designed to replace the Bf.110 and was designed just before the start of the World War II.
It saw many versions which we will cover them later, but on this we're centering on the Me.210C which was powered by two Daimler Benz DB 605 engines and some changes to the airframe.
It was used by the following countries:

• Hungary: The performance of the Me. 210C satisfied Hungarian authorities which purchased a production license for the type, to fill the role of the Varga RMI-1 X/H (a prototype recon-bomber which never managed to fly) and received the denomination of Me.210Ca where "a" stands for ausländisch (foreign) as well as for its DB 605 engines. They purchased many airframes as well to be completed in Hungarian factories for practice while the production assembly lines were being setting up. Production started in the Dunai Repülogépgyár Rt. (Danubian Aircraft Plant), under an agreement where the Luftwaffe received two of every three produced. The Hungarians manufactured a total of 272 exemplars with the Luftwaffe receiving 114 of them and the Royal Hungarian Air Force 158 during the production period that went from March 1943 to September 1944.
  Some Ca-1 airplanes were modified to carry a 40mm Bofors autocannon in the lower fuselage in order to destroy Allied bombers. Additionally, they could also carry 152mm rockets which were a Hungarian version of the German Nebelwerfer 41 for ground attack. A sound directed anti-bomber air-to-air weapon was under development to be mounted on the Me.210Ca, but the project wasn't finished before the fall of Budapest.
  The Royal Hungarian Air Force operated a total of 179 Hungarian-built Me.210Ca-1. It was relatively successful against Soviet airplanes and last Me.210 were destroyed on the ground by their crew at Pándorfalu (Parndorf in German) after the fall of Hungary in March 1945 due to the lack of fuel and spare parts and to prevent them from falling into Soviet hands.
  It served in four squadrons of the Royal Hungarian Air Force:
  -1º and 2º RKI Század "Villám" (Test Evaluation Squadron)
  -5/1. Légi Század "Bagoly" (Night Fighter Squadron)
  -102. Gyorsbombázo, 102/1. Század "Tigris"
  -102. Gyorsbombázo, 102/2. Század "Sas"
  -102. Gyorsbombázo, 102/3. Század "Villám"
• Japan: The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service received one Me.210A-2 in 1943 which was delivered dissasembled directly to Japan via U-Boat. It was operated by the First Tachikawa Air Army Arsenal. Not much is known about those testings, except that in the end the Japanese decided to rely on their own domestical models because of the adaptation to the environment.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_210

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/44M_Lidérc

3. https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/17166

4. https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=103890

5. Salamander Books - The COmplete Book of Fighters

Morane-Saulnier AF/AFH

The Morane-Saulnier AF, AKA Morane-Saulnier Type AF or MoS.28 was a French single-seat fighter of the World War 1.
The fuselage was similar to the contemporary Morane-Saulnier Al parasol monoplane and preceded the Morane-Saulnier AC shoulder mounted wing monoplane, however, the Type AF was designed as a biplane.
It was Morane-Saulnier's first biplane design, as the company was specialized in monoplane designs.
It was flown for the first time on 23rd June 1917 and was tested by the Aéronautique Militaire (French Army Aviation) later, in the end of 1917. It was however, rejected and not accepted into mass production, in favour of the SPAD, Morane-Saulnier Al and Nieuport 28. In November 1917 a floatplane version was also presented, named Morane-Saulnier Type AFH, intended to operate from naval bases or even warships, equipped with a single central pontoon-like float, but it was rejected as well.
One prototype of each variant was built at Morane-Saulnier's factory in Villacoublay, one AF and another AFH . Each of them was powered by a single Gnome Monosoupape which delivered 150hp of power and were armed with a single forward-firing synchronized 7.7 (0,303in) Vickers machine gun.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morane-Saulnier_AF
2. https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/167606
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Messerschmitt Bf.162

The Messerschmitt Bf.162 was a German light bomber prototype.
It was designed as a response to an specification issued by the Reichluftministerium (RLM - Reich's Aviation Ministry) made in 1935 for an schnellbomber (fast bomber) able of tactical bombing.
Messerschmitt presented their design, a modified Bf.110 with a glazed nose to accomodate a third crew member, the bombardier.
A pre-order of 65 aircraft was placed. However, after three prototypes were made (plus another two which were never completed and their parts were used for the Bf.110C production), and tested against its most direct competitors, the Junkers Ju.88 (which won the specification) and the Henschel Hs.127, the pre-order was cancelled. The Bf.162 was the only one that wasn't a completely new aircraft.
The specification was won by the Junkers Ju.88, which was selected for mass production, and therefore the development of the Bf.162 ended. However, in order to promote disinformation tactics, photos of the Messerschmitt Bf.162 circulated widely across the German press of the time, captioned as the "Messerschmitt Jaguar", a name that was never used in any other German aircraft.
The RLM's official airframe designation, 8-162, was later re-used for the Heinkel He.162 jet fighter, most probably for disinformation purposes.
The Bf.162 was powered by two Daimler-Benz DB600Aa liquid-cooled inverted V12 piston engines which delivered 986hp of power each. Initially it was going to be armed (as the prototype never got any kind of weaponry installed on) with one defensive 7,92mm MG 15 machine gun placed in dorsal position behind the pilot, however, most likely, another one would've been installed in the nose for the bombardier to operate. Expected payload was 500kg (1102lb) internally and two 250kg bombs externally, under wings, in an overload configuration which, most probably would've required the replacement of the engines.
The first prototype was scrapped after trials in 1937, the second one was also used for towing the Messerschmitt Me.162 at Messerschmitt's Augsburg factory and the third one was delivered to Rechlin, the test grounds of the RLM, where its fate is unknown, however it was most likely destroyed, either in fire testing trials or enemy bombings.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_162
2. http://www.histaviation.com/Messerschmitt__Bf_162.html

Messerschmitt Bf.161

The Messerschmitt Bf.161 was a German reconnaissance aircraft prototype.
It was a specialized reconnaissance aircraft heavily based on the Messerschmitt Bf.110 and similar to the Bf.162 light bomber.
Two prototypes were made at Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, in Augsburg. The first one, V-1, was powered by two Junkers Jumo 210 inline engines and flew for the first time on 9th March 1938 piloted by Dr. Würster.
It was shortly followed by a second prototype, labelled V-2, which was powered by two Daimler Benz DB600A engines, which flew for the first time on 30th August 1938.
It didn't enter production because shortly later the RLM (German Air Ministry) decided that a new aircraft type dedicated exclusively to reconnaissance role wasn't needed, as variants of the Messerschmitt Bf.110 could perfectly perform that role.
The two prototypes were used for aerodynamical research and development. The second prototype, V2, was used in Augsburg for towing the first prototype of the Messerschmitt Me.163 to Messerschmitt's proving airfield, and later to Peenemünde to perform official RLM trials and keep towing it.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_161
2. http://www.histaviation.com/Messerschmitt__Bf_161.html

Hanriot H.220

At the Paris Aeronautical Saloon held in November 1936 the Hanriot H.220 was presented. It was a striking all-metal three-seater and twin-engined aircraft.
It had an abbreviated oval-section monocoque fuselage, a shoulder-mounted semi-cantilever wing carrying split training-edge flaps over its entire span and was powered by two 450hp Renault 12roi 12-cylinder inline engines, projecting ahead of the fuselage nose.
The H.220 was designed around a C3 requirement issued by the Service Technique de l'Aeronautique (Technical Service of the Air Force) in October 1934. The contenders for that requirement were the Breguet 690 (which won the contract), the Potez 630, the Loire-Nieuport 20 and the Romano 110.
Soon became obvious that the aircraft would've been underpowered, so Hanriot chose to replace the Renault engines with two 680hp Gnome-Rhône 14M 14-cylinder radial engines and, with those engines installed, it made its maiden flight on 21st September 1937 at Avord, in France.
It was intended to be armed with two forward-firing 20mm cannons and two aft-firing 7.5mm MAC 1934 machine guns on a flexible mount but, no armament was mounted at all. On 17th February 1938 the prototype made a forced landing after losing the starboard propeller, following a failure in the reduction gearbox. The poor stability clearly showed during testing, combined with inadequate internal capacity and the lack of sturdiness forced a major redesign of the aircraft, resulting in the H.220-2 which, after Hanriot was nationalized, it became the SNCAC NC-600.

Sources:
1. http://www.aviastar.org/air/france/hanriot_h-220.php
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNCAC_NC-600
3. https://www.aviafrance.com/hanriot-h-220-aviation-france-50.htm (translated)

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15bis - Czechoslovak users

As Czechoslovakia became one of the USSR satellite countries, since the communist coup d'etat of 1948, their air force had been receiving Soviet made material since that year.
Therefore, during the years following the coup d'etat, both army and air force underwent several reforms and purges.
One of those, rather radical, reforms, fall back onto the air force as, in 1951 the 1st 2nd and 3rd Air Defence Districts of State territory were created, as well as the 15th Fighter Air Corps, which was equipped, almost entirely with either MiG-15, MiG-15bis or their Czechoslovak copies, Aero S-102 (which has already been covered in a previous post) and Aero S-103 (the Czechoslovak copy of the MiG-15bis) because, since 1948, they were replacing their fighters like the locally built Avia S.99 (a local copy of the Messerschmitt Bf.109G with a new engine), Supermarine Spitfires or De Havilland Mosquitoes.
The 15th Air Fighter Corps was comprised of 1st, 3rd, 5th and 166th Fighter Air Divisions. This last one, the 166th, became, in the late 1950s the 2nd Fighter Air Division.
The Aero S-103 was the license-built copy of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15bis. It was manufactured by Aero Vodochody n.p., at Odolena Voda, Czechoslovakia, where around 620 exemplars were manufactured.
Both the MiG-15, the MiG-15bis and their Czechoslovak copies equipped the Air Force of Czechoslovakia from the early 1950s until the mid-to-late 1950s when they were replaced with the more capable MiG-17. Some of them were exported to Arab countries like Egypt and Syria where they saw action in the Suez Crisis. Some outdated MiG-15bis were retained by training units and used as advanced trainers, which could be identified by the blue bands painted on the fuselage.
In 1968 around 75 old MiG-15bis were reconverted into ground-attack airplanes, equipping them with either bombs or air-to-ground missiles. Some of these are known to have been sold to Iraq, which incorporated them into their air force in the early 1970s, however they didn't seem to be very successful since the available data about them is rather scarce. They were named as MiG-15bisSB.
One dogfight between two Czechoslovak Aero-103s and two American F-84E Thunderjet took place on 10th March 1953 over the village of Merklín, in the Czechoslovak Bohemian region when the Czechoslovak Air Force detected two American F-84E Thunderjet fighters flying above Czechoslovak soil. The Czech pilot Jaroslav Srámek shot down one American Republic F-84E Thunderjet belonging to the 53rd Fighter-Bomber Squadron, 36th Fighter-Bomber wing and repelled the other. The American pilot, Lt. Warren G. Brown, managed to eject from the aircraft which crash-landed in West-German territory, approximately 35km (22mi) from the border, and survived.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_Air_Force
2. https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/53180
3. https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/196279
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15#Other_events
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_battle_over_Merklín
6. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Vultee P-66 Vanguard

During the late 1930s Vultee Aircraft Division conceived what later would be the Vultee Vanguard from a set of common wings ,aft fuselage and tail assemblies. Four designations were assigned by the company, V-48 for a single-seat fighter, BC-51 for a double-seat basic combat trainer, B-54 for an advanced combat trainer (where BC-54D would be the basic trainer variant). Eventually, the BC-51 became the Army Air Corps BC-3 and the BC-54D became the Vultee BT-13 Valiant.
Therefore, in 1938, Richard W. Palmer, designed the V-48 fighter. It featured a metal-covered, semi-monocoque fuselage and fully retractable landing gear. It was powered by a 1200hp Pratt & Whitney R-1830 radial engine. When the first prototype was being constructed, a decision was taken to lengthen the propeller shaft and install a tight cowling to provide a pointed nose to reduce drag. That way, the first prototype made its maiden flight in September 1939 piloted by Vance Breese. Nicknamed "Vanguard", on the 9th May 1940, when performing a test flight, the prototype collided with a Lockheed Sirius, while landing at Vultee airfield, severing one of the undercarriage legs. However, Breese managed to skillfully land the fighter with little additional damage. The prototype was subsequently rebuilt with the orthodox cowling that was employed in the subsequent exemplars.
Flight testing revealed inadequate cooling, however, measures to modify the cooling ducting were of little avail. The design was re-evaluated and it was reached to the conclusion that the insignificant drag reduce wasn't worth the added weight and ducting problems. The second prototype, named V-48X was modified with a conventional cowl, and the first aircraft was subsequently modified.
It flew for the first time on 11th February 1940 and, as result of flight tests, changes were made to the design including substantially increasing the areas of the horizontal and vertical tail surfaces.
On 6th February 1940 the Swedish government ordered 144 Vanguards which were labelled as the V-48C. The production prototype flew later on 6th September 1940. The model V-48C was similar to the V-48X except for the engine which was a later version of the R-1830 engine with a better high-altittude performance and provision for four 0.30in (7.92mm) machine guns in the wings and two 0.50in (12.7mm) machine guns in the fuselage.
When the aircraft was placed into production in September 1941, the U.S. Government placed an embargo on exporting the aircraft to Sweden. After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent reorganization of the U.S. Army Air Corps, they were given the designation of P-66. Production ended in April 1942 with around 50 aircraft were retained by the USAAF and used them mainly at pursuit training bases in the Western U.S. assigned to the 14th Pursuit Group in defensive roles. Pilots were impressed by the P-66s handling, however it was considered less than robust and a tendency to ground-loop destroyed more than 15 aircraft in landing accidents.
The British government took possesion of 100 P-66s which named them as Vanguard I with the intention of using them as advanced trainers in Canada. However, they reliquished the aircraft to China where 104 Vanguards, some of them being USAAC's machines, were shipped under lend-lease program. They were originally intended to serve with the 3rd American Volunteer Group (AVG), but plans for additional groups were discarded after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In late 1942 the Chinese received the machines via India and they were pushed into service with USAAF insignia and serials as well as Chinese markings and Vultee serials on factory models.
It didn't have a distinguished career in China due to problems that began back in transit towards China when some were destroyed in tests in India and others were lost while en route to China. Most of the assembled P-66 were not marked as airworthy and were abandoned in Karachi, with just 12 Vanguards serving in Kunming with the 74th Fighter Squadron, 23th Fighter Group where they barely saw any action at all.
Two Chinese squadrons from the 3rd and 5th Groups, based at An-Su, saw some combat action with the Vanguard from August 1943 onwards. However, many P-66s were shot down on the ground during Japanese attacks and many others were shot down by friendly fire when they were mistaken for the Nakajima Ki-43 and Ki-44. Even if the P-66 had a decent top speed of 340mph (550Km/h), it wasn't a rival for the agile Japanese fighters in high-g maneouvers and they had to employ hit-and-run tactics against the Japanese.
In Chinese service, the P-66 was replaced by the Curtiss P-40 in 1943. Some few P-66s were placed in storage at caves for use in the upcoming civil war against the Chinese communists. However, as late as 1947 they were still in their crates and it's not known that they were using after World War II.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vultee_P-66_Vanguard
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Mitsubishi Ka-14

Back in 1934, the Imperial Japanese Navy issued a specification calling for an advanced fighter that would reach a maximum speed of 350km/h (220mph) at 3000m (9840ft) high and that could climb to 5000m (16400ft) in 6,5 minutes. Both Nakajima and Mitsubishi competed for this specification which was called 9-shi (1934).
Mitsubishi assigned the task of designing a new fighter to a team leaded by Jiro Horikoshi, who was the original designer of the previous, albeit unsuccessful, Mitsubishi 1MF10 and would later design the famous and successful Mitsubishi A6M Zero. The resulting design received the internal denomination of Mitsubishi Ka-14. It was an all-metal low-wing fighter with a thin elliptical inverted gull-wing and a fixed undercarriage, which was chosen because the increase in performance, estimated at a 10% in drag but just at a 3% in maximum speed, arising from use of a retractable undercarriage didn't justify the extra weight.
The first prototype flew for the first time on 4th February 1935 at Nagoya, in Japan and was powered by a single 5-cylinder Nakajima Kotobuki engine which yielded a power of 596hp, and although information about its armament is unknown, most likely, it wasn't armed. During testing, problems with the engine were found, as the reducer was very faulty, as well as stability ones. Therefore they decided to test new engines on the fuselage and wing flaps on a second prototype.
The second prototype was built shortly later, in that same year, 1935, this time powered by a 3 nine-cylinder Nakajima Kotobuki radial engine which yielded 705hp of power, and, like its most direct predecessor, the first prototype, its not known if it was armed, but, most likely, it wasn't.
One year later, in 1936 a third prototype was built, this time powered by a 789hp Nakajima Hikari 1 radial engine which was followed by a fourth one, all of them used to test the different engines.
The experience gained on the Mitsubishi Ka-14, inspired the later design of the Mitsubishi A5M, which would eventually win the contract.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A5M
2. https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/118810