AP 118 · No. 11 Section II · Aircraft Plate 194 / 370

Plate 194 of 370 · Second World War · Heavy bomber

Mitsubishi Ki-67-I Hiryu

Ki-67-I manufacture number 177, 98th Sentai, painted as Mitsubishi Ki-67-I Hiryu ‘Peggy’ manufacture number 177, tail code ‘7-77’, of the 98th Sentai, Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, completed in the summer of 1944 and abandoned at Clark Field on Luzon in the Philippines, where US forces captured it in January 1945: a twin-engined heavy bomber with two Mitsubishi Ha-104 eighteen-cylinder radials driving four-bladed propellers, a glazed nose, a stepped cockpit, a dorsal gun turret, waist blisters and a tail gun position, a mid-mounted wing spanning 22.5 m and a single tall fin and rudder, shown tail down on its wheels: light grey-green overall, a dark green fin and rudder with ‘7-77’ in white, a red hinomaru on the fuselage and wings, yellow identification strips on the inner wing leading edges, blue-black cowlings and brown propellers (shape from a Ki-67-I three-view scaled to the published span and length, checked against wartime photographs; the finish, fin colour, tail code and fuselage hinomaru follow two black-and-white photographs of this aircraft after its capture, and the wing hinomaru, leading-edge strips, cowling and propeller colours follow standard practice).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Mitsubishi Ki-67-I Hiryu ‘Peggy’ manufacture number 177, tail code ‘7-77’, of the 98th Sentai, Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, completed in the summer of 1944 and abandoned at Clark Field on Luzon in the Philippines, where US forces captured it in January 1945: a twin-engined heavy bomber with two Mitsubishi Ha-104 eighteen-cylinder radials driving four-bladed propellers, a glazed nose, a stepped cockpit, a dorsal gun turret, waist blisters and a tail gun position, a mid-mounted wing spanning 22.5 m and a single tall fin and rudder, shown tail down on its wheels: light grey-green overall, a dark green fin and rudder with ‘7-77’ in white, a red hinomaru on the fuselage and wings, yellow identification strips on the inner wing leading edges, blue-black cowlings and brown propellers (shape from a Ki-67-I three-view scaled to the published span and length, checked against wartime photographs; the finish, fin colour, tail code and fuselage hinomaru follow two black-and-white photographs of this aircraft after its capture, and the wing hinomaru, leading-edge strips, cowling and propeller colours follow standard practice). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.3 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Ki-67-I (Allied name ‘Peggy’)); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Ki-67-I manufacture number 177, 98th Sentai modelled here.

History

The Ki-67-I ‘Peggy’

Early in 1941 the Imperial Japanese Army asked Mitsubishi for a new heavy bomber to follow the Ki-21 and Nakajima’s Ki-49. The Army still thought of a war with the Soviet Union, so it wanted a fast tactical bomber that could strike airfields and troops behind the front, rather than a heavy load carrier. Mitsubishi’s team under Hisanojo Ozawa designed a clean, all-metal mid-wing monoplane with two of the new Mitsubishi Ha-104 eighteen-cylinder radials, self-sealing fuel tanks and armour for the crew, and gave it the handling of a much smaller aircraft. The first prototype flew on 27 December 1942.

Development was slowed by the Army’s requests for changes and by the new engines, and the Ki-67 did not enter production until 1943 or service until 1944, as the Army Type 4 Heavy Bomber Hiryu, ‘flying dragon’. The Allies called it ‘Peggy’. It was the fastest Japanese bomber of the war, and light and strong enough to be looped and rolled. The Navy, short of modern aircraft, had it fitted to carry a torpedo, and Army crews of the 7th and 98th Sentai flew torpedo Ki-67s under Navy command against the American carriers off Formosa in October 1944.

Ki-67s fought over the Philippines, attacked the B-29 bases in the Marianas from Iwo Jima at the end of 1944 and flew against the American fleet off Okinawa in 1945, many of them in the end as special attack aircraft packed with explosives. A version armed with a 75 mm gun, the Ki-109, was built to attack B-29s, and Ki-67s carried trials of the Army’s radio-guided anti-ship bomb. Factory bombing and the earthquake that struck Nagoya in December 1944 held production down; between about 700 and 770 were built, depending on the source, and no complete Ki-67 survives.

This airframe

Ki-67-I manufacture number 177, 98th Sentai

177The airframe modelled

Manufacture number 177 is a Ki-67-I completed by Mitsubishi in the summer of 1944 (a fuel tank in it was stamped with the number and dated 29 July 1944) and flown by the 98th Sentai, which carries the tail code ‘7-77’ on its fin. It was abandoned at Clark Field on Luzon, in the Philippines, and captured there by US forces on 30 January 1945; the Allied technical intelligence unit recorded its makers’ plates, and two photographs show it, one from each side, with its tail code clear. It is modelled because no complete Ki-67 survives, and 177 is the only Ki-67 found whose identity, unit, build date and capture are all documented. None is in a UK museum. The photographs show a wreck missing its tailplanes, engines, rudder fabric and nose glazing; the model shows it complete, standing tail down on its wheels: light grey-green overall, a dark green fin and rudder with ‘7-77’ in white, a faded red hinomaru on the fuselage, red hinomaru on the wings, yellow identification strips on the inner wing leading edges, blue-black cowlings and brown four-bladed propellers. Its shape comes from a Ki-67-I three-view scaled to the type’s span and length, checked against wartime photographs. The photographs are black and white, so the grey-green reading of the light finish is a judgement; the wing markings, the leading-edge strips, the cowling and propeller colours and the 20 mm dorsal turret, which the photographs do not show, follow standard practice.

Where to see one

Not on charge

No complete Ki-67 survives.

All 370 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.