AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 152 / 342

Plate 152 of 342 · Second World War · Night fighter

Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko

J1N1-S c/n 7334, painted as Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko (Allied name ‘Irving’) c/n 7334 of the Yokosuka Kokutai, coded ‘ヨ-102’, as restored by the Smithsonian and displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia: a two-seat twin-engined Imperial Japanese Navy night fighter with two Nakajima Sakae 21 radials in long nacelles, a slim fuselage under a long glazed canopy, two 20 mm cannon firing obliquely upward behind the cockpit, four Yagi radar aerials round the nose and a wing spanning 16.98 m, shown tail down on its wheels: overall dark green with blue-black cowlings, plain red hinomaru on the fuselage and on both surfaces of the wings, yellow leading-edge strips on the inner wings, a red fin cap and stripe, the code ‘ヨ-102’ in red on the fin, and red-brown propellers with yellow tip bands (shape from the Lébl three-view scaled to the published span and checked against photographs of this aircraft; the undersides are green as every low-angle photograph shows, no downward-firing guns are shown as none appears in the photographs, and the starboard fin code is assumed to match the port side).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko (Allied name ‘Irving’) c/n 7334 of the Yokosuka Kokutai, coded ‘ヨ-102’, as restored by the Smithsonian and displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia: a two-seat twin-engined Imperial Japanese Navy night fighter with two Nakajima Sakae 21 radials in long nacelles, a slim fuselage under a long glazed canopy, two 20 mm cannon firing obliquely upward behind the cockpit, four Yagi radar aerials round the nose and a wing spanning 16.98 m, shown tail down on its wheels: overall dark green with blue-black cowlings, plain red hinomaru on the fuselage and on both surfaces of the wings, yellow leading-edge strips on the inner wings, a red fin cap and stripe, the code ‘ヨ-102’ in red on the fin, and red-brown propellers with yellow tip bands (shape from the Lébl three-view scaled to the published span and checked against photographs of this aircraft; the undersides are green as every low-angle photograph shows, no downward-firing guns are shown as none appears in the photographs, and the starboard fin code is assumed to match the port side). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.0 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (J1N1-S (Allied name ‘Irving’)); engine, crew and dimensions are for the J1N1-S c/n 7334 modelled here.

History

The J1N1-S ‘Irving’

In 1938 the Imperial Japanese Navy asked for a long-range escort fighter that could stay with its bombers over the vast distances of China, the 13-Shi requirement. Nakajima’s answer was a slim, three-seat twin with two Sakae radials, the engine of the Zero, and a pair of remotely controlled gun barbettes behind the cockpit. The first prototype flew in May 1941. It was fast and had great range, but the barbettes were heavy and unreliable and it could not turn with a single-seat fighter, so the navy ordered it instead as a three-seat reconnaissance aircraft, the J1N1-C.

As a reconnaissance aircraft it flew over the Solomons from Rabaul in 1942, but losses to American fighters were heavy. Commander Yasuna Kozono of the 251st Kokutai, whose base was being bombed at night by B-17s, had two 20 mm cannon fitted in the fuselage behind the cockpit at an upward angle of 30 degrees, so that a crew could fly beneath a bomber unseen and fire up into it. On the night of 21 May 1943 one of these converted aircraft shot down two B-17s over Rabaul, and the navy ordered the type as a two-seat night fighter, the J1N1-S Gekko, meaning moonlight.

Gekkos defended Rabaul and the Philippines and, from late 1944, the Japanese home islands against the B-29s. Some carried a searchlight or radar in the nose, and later aircraft had three upward-firing cannon and no downward pair. They had some success against B-29s flying at night, but they were too slow to catch them in daylight, and in the last months of the war many were used for kamikaze attacks. The Allies called the type ‘Irving’. 479 were built of all versions, and only one survives.

This airframe

J1N1-S Gekko c/n 7334

c/n 7334The airframe modelled

c/n 7334 served with the Yokosuka Kokutai, the navy’s test and home-defence unit, and wore the code ‘ヨ-102’. It was surrendered at Yokosuka in September 1945 and shipped to the United States aboard the escort carrier USS Barnes, where it was given the Foreign Equipment number FE 3031, later T2-N700. It was flown once in June 1946 and then stored, at Park Ridge in Illinois and later at the Smithsonian’s Paul E. Garber facility at Suitland, Maryland. The National Air and Space Museum restored it between 1979 and 1983, about 17,000 hours of work, and it has been displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia since 2003. It is the only Gekko in existence, and none is in a UK museum. The model shows it as restored, standing tail down on its wheels: overall dark green with blue-black cowlings, plain red hinomaru on the fuselage and on both surfaces of the wings, yellow leading-edge strips on the inner wings, a red fin cap and stripe, the code ‘ヨ-102’ in red on the fin, four radar aerials round the nose and two 20 mm cannon pointing upward behind the cockpit. Its shape comes from a published three-view checked against photographs of this aircraft. The photographs show the undersides green rather than grey, so the model does too; it has no downward-firing guns because none is visible on the aircraft, and the starboard fin code is assumed to match the port side.

Where to see one

Not on charge

The only survivor is at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.

All 342 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.