Nakajima Ki.27 ("Nate"/"Abdul")
Click HERE to see a more detailed 3-view of the Nate
Designed to meet a mid-1935 specification for an advanced fighter, the first prototype of the Ki-27 flew in 1936 and after examples were tested in late 1937 an improved version was ordered into production. The Ki-27 went into service over northern China in March of 1938, and when the Pacific War started they saw combat during the invasions of Burma, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines. The Ki-27 was given the Allied codename of "Nate" (though it initially also had the codename of "Abdul" in the China/Burma/India theater until "Abdul" was dropped as being redundant). In the early part of the war the Ki-27s had considerable successes against the Allied aircraft against which it fought, but when the Allies began to field more modern fighters the Ki-27 was relegated to homeland defense duties until 1943. Once they were removed from fighter duties they continued to be employed as advanced trainers, with the surviving examples being used as kamikazes at war's end. By the time production ceased almost 4,000 examples had been built.
Nakajima Ki.27
Type: Fighter
Service: Japanese Army Air Force (JAAF)
Crew: one
Armament: two fixed forward-firing 7.7mm machine guns
two 55 lb (25 kg) bombs
Reference: Francillon: 203, Mondey: 220
Specifications:
Length: 24' 8.5" (7.53 m)
Height: 10' 8" (3.25 m)
Wingspan: 37' 1.25" (11.31 m)
Wing area: 199.777 sq. ft (18.56 sq. m)
Empty Weight: 2447 lbs (1110 kg)
Max Weight: 3946 lbs (1790 kg)
Propulsion:
No. of Engines: 1
Powerplant: Nakajima Ha-1b 9-cylinder radial
Horsepower: 650 hp
Performance:
Range: 390 miles (627 km)
Cruise Speed: 217 mph (350 km/hr) at 11480 ft (3500 m)
Max Speed: 292 mph (470 km/hr) at 11480 ft (3500 m)
Climb to/in: 16405 ft (5000 m) in 5 min 22 sec
Ceiling: n/a
Production: approximately 3399 Ki-27s
Additional information on this aircraft can be found at Wikipedia
HERE.
For several very nice scale color drawings of this aircraft, see
here
(3 versions available on left).
Additional color schemes for this aircraft can be found
here.
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