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[Teaser] Rikugun Ki-93 (Flying 31st Sentai, "White 1")

9,428 vcharng  4.4 years ago

The aircraft is almost complete (hell, 82 of 200 parts of this plane are spent on the engines)

Introducing the Rikugun Ki-93 of Flying 31st Sentai

History:
After the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in 1939, the IJAAF found that they are struggling with supporting the ground troops, as their aircraft lacks the firepower to penetrate Soviet tanks, and thus can only engage with the limited ordnance, which became part of the reason why the Japanese failed miserably in Khalkhin Gol.

In response, a branch of twin-engine, heavily-gunned attackers (known as "assault aircraft" in IJAAF nomenclature) were designed. These include the Ki-102 from Kawasaki Aircraft, and the Ki-93 from the Army's own Aviation Technology Institute.

The Ki-93 features a traditional taildragger, twin-engined configuration. A gondola under the fuselage carryies the Ho-402 57mm autocannon, the main weapon of the aircraft. The powerplants are two Ha-214 22-cylinder air-cooled engines powering two 6-bladed Sumitomo (presumably constant-speed, licensed VDM product) propellers.

Unlike a common misconception in Western countries, the Ki-93 was exclusively an attacker, and there was no so called "Ki-93-Ib with 75mm" design.


About the Flying 31st Sentai:
Sentai means "fighting team", so Flying 31st Sentai pretty much means "31st squadron". The 31st Sentai was an attacker squadron that operated Ki-30s during WWII.
The picture above shows the insignia of the 31st Sentai, i.e. two stripes and a thunderbolt on the vertical stablizer, it was made in accordance with this picture:

^ a Mitsubishi Ki-30 bearing the Flying 31st Sentai's insignia

The Japanese Army Air Force uses color+number to designate members in a squadron.
For example, a squadron may consist four flights, which would be coded by colors like white, blue, red and yellow. White 1 would mean the lead aircraft of the white flight.

Cockpit:

The cockpit basically uses the same as the Fw 250, but this time, in order to express the feature of constant-speed propellers, the RPM meters have been changed to propeller pitch indicators.

unfortunately this means you have to adjust engine output by VTOL, and control the tail gunner by throttle because the pitch has to be reversible.

On the other hand, the use of constant-speed propellers greatly increased the aircraft's acceleration, deceleration and engine startup speed (especially for aerial spawn points)

Other features not shown on the screenshots:
-custom engines with custom cowl flaps (automatically closes at 200 mph)
-cartridge ejection
-recoil action of the 57mm gun

I think I'll be able to upload this plane within this weekend.

T or upvote to be tagged on the completed plane.

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    9,428 vcharng

    @ThePrototype The plane is already out, though it's not really Me 163 cockpit... it's more like an original cockpit made to fit the needs and possibilities in SP

    4.4 years ago
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    16.4k ThePrototype

    Cockpit reminds me of a Ki-200 or Me-163

    4.4 years ago
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    @MethaManAircraft
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    4.4 years ago
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