AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 160 / 328

Plate 160 of 328 · Second World War · Fighter

Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-Kai

N1K2-J c/n 5128 ‘A343-19’, painted as Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-Kai (Allied name ‘George’) manufacturer’s number 5128, tail code A343-19 of the 343rd Kokutai, Imperial Japanese Navy, shipped to the United States after the war for evaluation as T2-N306 and now displayed indoors at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida: a single-seat land-based navy interceptor with a close-cowled Nakajima Homare radial and a four-blade propeller, a bubble-topped canopy, a low-set wing with four 20 mm cannon and rounded tips, and a tall rounded fin and rudder, shown tail down on its main wheels and tail wheel: dark green upper surfaces and fuselage sides with a black-green cowling over silver-grey undersides, yellow identification strips on the inner wing leading edges, a white-ringed red hinomaru on each side of the fuselage and plain red hinomaru above and below the wings, a yellow ‘A’ and ‘343-19’ on the fin and rudder, a red spinner and brown blades with yellow tips, as photographed at Pensacola (no Shiden is in a UK museum; shape from Nohara Shigeru’s N1K2-Ja three-view checked against photographs of 5128; the hand-painted tail code is approximated in a stencil face, and the small stencils, the rudder maintenance marking and the museum tags on the leg doors are left off).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Kawanishi N1K2-J Shiden-Kai (Allied name ‘George’) manufacturer’s number 5128, tail code A343-19 of the 343rd Kokutai, Imperial Japanese Navy, shipped to the United States after the war for evaluation as T2-N306 and now displayed indoors at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida: a single-seat land-based navy interceptor with a close-cowled Nakajima Homare radial and a four-blade propeller, a bubble-topped canopy, a low-set wing with four 20 mm cannon and rounded tips, and a tall rounded fin and rudder, shown tail down on its main wheels and tail wheel: dark green upper surfaces and fuselage sides with a black-green cowling over silver-grey undersides, yellow identification strips on the inner wing leading edges, a white-ringed red hinomaru on each side of the fuselage and plain red hinomaru above and below the wings, a yellow ‘A’ and ‘343-19’ on the fin and rudder, a red spinner and brown blades with yellow tips, as photographed at Pensacola (no Shiden is in a UK museum; shape from Nohara Shigeru’s N1K2-Ja three-view checked against photographs of 5128; the hand-painted tail code is approximated in a stencil face, and the small stencils, the rudder maintenance marking and the museum tags on the leg doors are left off). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.2 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (N1K1-J & N1K2-J Shiden-Kai (Allied name ‘George’)); engine, crew and dimensions are for the N1K2-J c/n 5128 ‘A343-19’ modelled here.

History

The Shiden-Kai

The Shiden began as a floatplane. In 1940 Kawanishi offered the Imperial Japanese Navy a fighter on floats that could defend islands where there was no time to build an airfield, and the N1K1 Kyofu, ‘Mighty Wind’, flew in May 1942. By then the navy needed land-based fighters far more, and Kawanishi’s designers, on their own initiative, drew a version with wheels in place of floats and the new Nakajima Homare eighteen-cylinder radial in place of the Kyofu’s Kasei. This N1K1-J Shiden, ‘Violet Lightning’, first flew on 27 December 1942. It kept the floatplane’s mid-set wing, so its main undercarriage legs had to be long, and they shortened as they retracted: a complicated arrangement that gave trouble from the start.

The navy ordered the Shiden into production, and it reached units in 1944, fighting over the Philippines and Formosa. Kawanishi had meanwhile redesigned it as the N1K2-J Shiden-Kai, with the wing moved down to the bottom of the fuselage, shorter and simpler undercarriage legs, a new fuselage and tail and far fewer parts. It first flew on 31 December 1943 and carried four 20 mm cannon in the wings. In December 1944 Captain Minoru Genda gathered some of the navy’s most experienced remaining pilots into the 343rd Kokutai at Matsuyama, equipped with Shiden-Kai, and on 19 March 1945 they met American carrier aircraft attacking the naval base at Kure in one of the largest air battles over Japan.

The Allies, who called both versions ‘George’, found the Shiden-Kai a match for the Hellcat and the Corsair in the hands of a good pilot. But the Homare was temperamental and hard to keep running on poor fuel, factories were bombed, and only about 1,400 Shidens of both versions were built, around 400 of them Shiden-Kai. Three Shiden-Kai survive in museums in the United States, and a fourth, found in the sea off Shikoku in 1978 and raised the following year, is displayed in Japan; none is in a UK museum.

This airframe

N1K2-J c/n 5128 ‘A343-19’

5128The airframe modelled

Manufacturer’s number 5128 is a Kawanishi-built Shiden-Kai that served with the 343rd Kokutai and wears its tail code A343-19. After the surrender it was one of the Shiden-Kai shipped to the United States for technical evaluation, and it is now displayed indoors at the National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida. The model shows it as it stands there, tail down on its wheels: dark green upper surfaces and fuselage sides with a black-green cowling over silver-grey undersides, narrow yellow identification strips on the inner wing leading edges, a white-ringed red hinomaru on each side of the fuselage and plain red hinomaru above and below the wings, a yellow ‘A’ and ‘343-19’ across the fin and rudder, a red spinner and brown propeller blades with yellow tips. Its shape was taken from Nohara Shigeru’s N1K2-Ja three-view and checked against photographs of 5128. The hand-painted tail code is approximated in a stencil face, and the small stencils, the rudder maintenance marking and the museum’s tags on the undercarriage doors are left off.

Where to see one

Not on charge

Survivors are in the United States, and one raised from the sea in 1979 is displayed in Ehime prefecture, Japan. None is in a UK museum.

All 328 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.