Info: Nakajima Kikka (Orange Blossom)

[Topspeed]

Above first the P-59 Airacomet:

..what an abort! And this ugly avionette was better than kikka?

There is not much jetfilosophy in it yet. P-80 " SHOOTING STAR " was a lot more advanced...and by F-87 Sabre..everything confiscated from the Germans were studied and really fast jets were being produced..same as the Mig-15 in the east.

I think the two wingmounted engines weren't really a god idea...Ta 183 " Huckebein " would have been really a headache for the allied.

See the link to luft46.com :

http://www.luft46.com/ghart/gh183-1.jpg



Juke T

[Cantankerous]

I thought only one surviving Kikka, the last, was preserved by the US National Air and Space Museum. I didn't know there were two of them. The new NASM annex just opened recently, but the Kikka was not there. Not yet at least.

I've wondered about that too, how fast the Japanese developed a working turbojet engine so late in the war.

Nakajima planned to license-build the Me 262 for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force as the Ki-201 Karyu (Fire Dragon). It would have been powered by two Nakajima Ne-230s (license-built copies of the Jumo 004B). The Ne-20 turbojet developed for the Kikka was constructed thanks to a drawing of the BMW 003 turbojet developed for the He 162, Ju 287A-1, and Ar 234C.