Japan's Failed Copycat Bombers | Mitsubishi Ki-1 & Ki-2 [Aircraft Overview #61]

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F.A.Q Section

Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)

Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.

Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)

Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.

Feel free to leave you questions below - I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will keep my eyes open :)

Great videos. Your research is very thorough

Here we go again. Requirements, that ask for a egg laying wool milk pig. Proving time and time again that these so called boards have sub-zero knowledge about anything at all.

Rex.... Question, it's a big one and I'm sure a giant amount of work. Would you be interested in doing a research video on the A6 Intruder? It's a big ask I know.

Don’t forget the Japanese also built G 38s under licence.

So beastly ugly that they R beautiful, kinda like good pain.
Have always loved the greenhouse Sally/Ki-21.

Almost cartoonishly huge tires on the landing gear.

You're doing a great job! How about a program dealing with the Junkers 52?

Another very interesting piece of aviation history. Thanks a lot.

This is referenced in the Studio Ghibli film "The Wind Rises" about Jiro Horikoshi, who went on to design the Zero fighter.

an

Mo Dakka Needed!!!ORKSORKSORKSORKSORKSORKSORKSORKSORKS

A junker to be sure if fighters show up.

👍👍

Lmao the first models with the open canopy remembers airplanes I drawed in my childhood,

The Japanese writing on those early bombers says 'aikoku', love of country.

You'd think the old farts in charge of their military would've been smart enough to know that starting an air war with the people who invented the airplane wasn't a very good idea.  
Kinda like that old fart in Moscow who thought invading Ukraine was a good idea.

Ii enjoy your work Rex

Lol, I just had a Mitsubishi commercial pop up

"Screaming tube!" LOL! That's great!

My favorite Era in aviation ...great vid ! Keep them coming ...

It's quite remarkable to me that this AC type was built between the wars by Mitsubishi, the same company that built the car my wife drives today in the 2000's.

That thing must have the aerodynamics of a cinderblock.

I love the content of this channel/series. That is all.

Man, in a couple photos that thing looks like it has legit tractor tires fitted.

Just as "Ki" in Japanese Army designations is a syllable and not the letters K and I, the "Ha" in Japanese Army engine nomenclature is a syllable pronounced "Ha", being the first character of the word Hatsudoki which means "motor" using the katakana script.

That KI-1, final version looks cool as heck. Also ildly pondering, the plane with S-AABL designation is certainly Swedish, but there's a small Finnish flag on the tail. I wonder if it flew a route between Sweden and Finland...

Incredible to think 10 yrs later you had Lancaster bombers and 10 yrs after that you had Vulcans victors and valiants

Incredible how Japan 🇯🇵, a new nation had so many advanced technology companies.

They should have developed the civilian model into a light Bomber. Thanks.

Those bombers were BUTT-UGLY (Ki-1)! And what's with the cartoonish main gear??

nice video

Can you make a Video about the Mitsubishi Ki-109 in the Future?

I am sorry to say this, but you are incorrect. These were not copies at all, they were a mix of 'inspiration and try it ourselves' and active co-development just like was occurring at Kawanishi, Kawasaki etc. Back in the 1920s, the Germans could not build or design military aircraft. The japanese understood this and employed a lot of Germans from their companies to design and build military aircraft offshore. There was a Japanese Navy factory in Denmark, for example. There was flow back the other way, too, Japanese update and modification to BMW VI (BMW VII and BMW IX) water-cooled V-12 aircraft engine first built in Germany in the 1920s. Japan built it as the Kawasaki Ha-9, but their mods got a hell of a lot more HP out of it: BMW was present at the Kawasaki plant and they fed these mods back to BMW who updated their engine etc. A heck of a lot of Heinkel, Dornier and Junkers engineers and designers rotated through Japanese factories and the giant aircraft factories built by Mitsubishi etc in the very late 30s were mildly updated designs and layouts of the big new heinkel plants.
This entire subject is very, very poorly researched. Much of the Japanese record has been lost. What we can say is that Japanese-German aviation cooperation was much deeper than we thought before and went on for a very long time.

Regards

Awesome job as usual. Im glad you didnt make any political comments about the japanese at the time, and stay with the aircraft and its story. Political lecturing in a technical video is off topic, a mistake other aircraft channels make. ( ie: flightless dodo)

"Corrugated metal on the wings"... what, why would you put that there?!

The metric was fun to follow. Trying to mentally convert this whole video to feet and knots. I’m curious how the pilots coped at 23ooo feet in an unpressurised vessel?

subscribed
Great channel!

Planes designer then: "what aerodynamics?"

Have always loved the Ki-1-II, looks like something used by the Galactic Empire, if only the engines were Ion Engines

It amazes me as to where you find the information and photographs for the fascinating aircraft in your videos !

I am always amazed that British aviation engine companies in the 1930s actually supplied engines to future Axis countries for prototype aircraft.

The Ki-1 been built in 1930s and not even considered a good plane, could you imagine trying to stop it from bombing your city today almost 100 years later? If it wasn’t for your country‘s military you wouldn’t have a chance in hell stopping that old antique

It seems to be somewhat lost in translation.

Thanks for another interesting video

:)

lol, screaming tube.

I can't imagine being in an open cockpit at 20,000 feet.

Really!? "Bomb Aimer"! How about Bombardier.

Side note: You can catch a glimpse of a Ki-1 being assembled in the background at Mitsubishi in the animated feature film The Wind Rises by Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli.