4 ms·

“Japanese Lindberghs” Made a 10k Mile-Flight in 1937

57 points by tintinnabula 6y ago

melling 6y ago
“nine-cylinder Nakajima radial engine, was named Kamikaze, or Divine Wind. ” Never knew there was another meaning for Kamikaze.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ericd 6y ago
  Yep, kami are Shinto spirits, and supposedly kamikaze was the name given to a typhoon that destroyed a massive mongol invasion fleet. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze
- emteycz 6y ago
  That's the same/only meaning as the attack unit was named.
- proggy 6y ago
  There’s only one meaning for the word, it can just be used in different contexts. For an example, in English, take “hellfire”. It’s a biblical reference to a conflagration in the underworld. Someone in the US military industrial complex thought it’d also be a very apt name for a type of missile. Same word, same basic meaning, different use.
- asutekku 6y ago
  神風 (kamikaze) translates literally into divine/a god (神) wind (風)
- samatman 6y ago
  The original Kamikaze were two typhoons, which twice saved Japan from being invaded by the Mongols under Kublai Khan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze_(typhoon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze_(typhoon)
mholt 6y ago
For a really interesting, semi-true story about a Japanese warplane engineer in WWII, I highly recommend watching *The Wind Rises&. Probably one of Miyazaki's finest works (although that's just my opinion). It gives you some sense of the sense of the nationalistic feelings in Japan as they entered WWII, and the tremendous pressures their country faced to prove themselves.
valuearb 6y ago
More detail on the Ki-77 disappearance from Wikipedia. “ Their intended destination was the German airfield at Sarabus (now Hvardiiske, Crimea, WikiMiniAtlas45.118236°N 33.976564°E.) but they were to disappear over the Indian Ocean. British fighters likely intercepted them as they were aware of the flight and its route (via air grid squares 3420, 2560 and 2510) thanks to the ULTRA analysts at Bletchley Park decoding intercepted German communications to Sarabus warning of their impending arrival.[2] Slow, unarmed, without armour protection and with a substantial amount of fuel on board, the Ki-77 would have been vulnerable to Allied fighters, even had no mechanical problems occurred.”
supernova87a 6y ago
It seems that most others have been relegated to relative obscurity in comparison with Lindbergh, including these Japanese pilots (hence the story). Australia saw Charles Kingsford Smith just about a year later do a similar (if not more impressive) feat across the Pacific, and many other aviation achievements. But all he is now (pretty much) is an airport name. Aside from all that, I'm always wowed at how these early pilots could set off into the unknown with the most rudimentary maps, no knowledge of what fuel awaited them. And no credit cards...
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  “Wrong Way” Corrigan being a notable exception.
- oska 6y ago
  My grandfather made me a beautiful wooden model of Kingsford Smith's biplane the Southern Cross, complete with spinning propeller. But we moved a lot when I was a child and at some point it got lost or left behind. I greatly regret not still having it, mainly as a reminder of my grandfather and his woodcrafting skills. My grandfather was born in 1910 and I think his imagination was caught by the exploits of Kingsford Smith and other early aviators, as was the case for so many people at that time.
  - oska 6y ago
    I don't know why I wrote 'biplane' above. The Southern Cross was of course a monoplane.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  It helps that much of their route at the start was subjugated under the prosperity sphere.
sandworm101 6y ago
We should not forget the military implication of these aircraft. These were not peaceful soaring propaganda machines. A craft that could fly for days, remain aloft across the vast pacific, would have been seen as an ideal reconnaissance platform for spotting approaching fleets. In the skies of the 1930s pacific theater speed was secondary to range and reliability. If they turned and ran, even the most powerful fighters of the time would have had trouble running them down before running out of fuel themselves.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Altitude. Any fighter they scramble from the ground to intercept is going to be trading speed for altitude, and unless they vastly outclass you, they won’t be able to close while climbing. With any luck, any planes already in the air will have to close a larger distance, and you can dump altitude to increase speed and thus distance. You’d just better pick a direction that doesn’t put you over another airfield, or you’ll be out of the pan and into the fire.
peterburkimsher 6y ago
A couple of days ago I discovered DeOldify [0], so I decided to colourise the pictures from this article. No copyright infringement intended, IANAL but I guess these are old enough to be public domain by now. https://imgbox.com/ED7IqzyD https://imgbox.com/ED7IqzyD https://imgbox.com/9kUgPmJa https://imgbox.com/9kUgPmJa https://imgbox.com/Jt1ngFre https://imgbox.com/Jt1ngFre https://imgbox.com/RElPFDJf https://imgbox.com/RElPFDJf I've also started colourising photos of my grandpa's 1937 cycling tour of Germany, Austria, and Italy [1]. To make peace, we must actively reach out and befriend all kinds of people. I'm thankful for communities like this where we can all learn from one another without discrimination. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24162561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24162561 [1] http://drmarionb.free.fr/1937CyclingTour/ http://drmarionb.free.fr/1937CyclingTour/
- samatman 6y ago
  This is very cool. I'm pretty sure the flags in the first photo weren't that color, however...
  - peterburkimsher 6y ago
    I'm sure they're red! It's interesting to see the limits of the AI. If I were better at art, I'd try to fix it manually, but I'm sure that I'd just end up making it look fake.
macintux 6y ago
More technical information: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/masaaki-iinuma/ https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/masaaki-iinuma/ And a lovely illustration of the route, curiously absent from both articles, can be found here: https://www.oldtokyo.com/tokyo-london-world-record-flight-1937/ https://www.oldtokyo.com/tokyo-london-world-record-flight-19... Mitsubishi, of course, also made a famous long-range fighter. Per Chuck Hawks: > Not only could the Zero out fight any Allied fighter, it also out-ranged them. Many people do not realize that the Zero was the world's first long range escort fighter. Zeros flew long range bomber escort missions during the war in China, before the Pacific war even began. If the Germans had the long range A6M2 Zero instead of the short range Bf 109E, the outcome of the Battle of Britain might have been very different. https://www.chuckhawks.com/best_fighter_planes.htm https://www.chuckhawks.com/best_fighter_planes.htm
- cafard 6y ago
  Wasn't that range bought in part by the omission of protection comparable to what e.g. Grummans had?

57 points by tintinnabula 6y ago

“nine-cylinder Nakajima radial engine, was named Kamikaze, or Divine Wind. ” Never knew there was another meaning for Kamikaze.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ericd 6y ago
Yep, kami are Shinto spirits, and supposedly kamikaze was the name given to a typhoon that destroyed a massive mongol invasion fleet. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze
emteycz 6y ago
That's the same/only meaning as the attack unit was named.
proggy 6y ago
There’s only one meaning for the word, it can just be used in different contexts. For an example, in English, take “hellfire”. It’s a biblical reference to a conflagration in the underworld. Someone in the US military industrial complex thought it’d also be a very apt name for a type of missile. Same word, same basic meaning, different use.
asutekku 6y ago
神風 (kamikaze) translates literally into divine/a god (神) wind (風)
samatman 6y ago
The original Kamikaze were two typhoons, which twice saved Japan from being invaded by the Mongols under Kublai Khan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze_(typhoon) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamikaze_(typhoon)

mholt 6y ago

For a really interesting, semi-true story about a Japanese warplane engineer in WWII, I highly recommend watching *The Wind Rises&. Probably one of Miyazaki's finest works (although that's just my opinion). It gives you some sense of the sense of the nationalistic feelings in Japan as they entered WWII, and the tremendous pressures their country faced to prove themselves.

valuearb 6y ago

More detail on the Ki-77 disappearance from Wikipedia. “ Their intended destination was the German airfield at Sarabus (now Hvardiiske, Crimea, WikiMiniAtlas45.118236°N 33.976564°E.) but they were to disappear over the Indian Ocean. British fighters likely intercepted them as they were aware of the flight and its route (via air grid squares 3420, 2560 and 2510) thanks to the ULTRA analysts at Bletchley Park decoding intercepted German communications to Sarabus warning of their impending arrival.[2] Slow, unarmed, without armour protection and with a substantial amount of fuel on board, the Ki-77 would have been vulnerable to Allied fighters, even had no mechanical problems occurred.”

supernova87a 6y ago

It seems that most others have been relegated to relative obscurity in comparison with Lindbergh, including these Japanese pilots (hence the story). Australia saw Charles Kingsford Smith just about a year later do a similar (if not more impressive) feat across the Pacific, and many other aviation achievements. But all he is now (pretty much) is an airport name. Aside from all that, I'm always wowed at how these early pilots could set off into the unknown with the most rudimentary maps, no knowledge of what fuel awaited them. And no credit cards...

selimthegrim 6y ago
“Wrong Way” Corrigan being a notable exception.
oska 6y ago
My grandfather made me a beautiful wooden model of Kingsford Smith's biplane the Southern Cross, complete with spinning propeller. But we moved a lot when I was a child and at some point it got lost or left behind. I greatly regret not still having it, mainly as a reminder of my grandfather and his woodcrafting skills. My grandfather was born in 1910 and I think his imagination was caught by the exploits of Kingsford Smith and other early aviators, as was the case for so many people at that time.
- oska 6y ago
  I don't know why I wrote 'biplane' above. The Southern Cross was of course a monoplane.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
It helps that much of their route at the start was subjugated under the prosperity sphere.

sandworm101 6y ago

We should not forget the military implication of these aircraft. These were not peaceful soaring propaganda machines. A craft that could fly for days, remain aloft across the vast pacific, would have been seen as an ideal reconnaissance platform for spotting approaching fleets. In the skies of the 1930s pacific theater speed was secondary to range and reliability. If they turned and ran, even the most powerful fighters of the time would have had trouble running them down before running out of fuel themselves.

hinkley 6y ago
Altitude. Any fighter they scramble from the ground to intercept is going to be trading speed for altitude, and unless they vastly outclass you, they won’t be able to close while climbing. With any luck, any planes already in the air will have to close a larger distance, and you can dump altitude to increase speed and thus distance. You’d just better pick a direction that doesn’t put you over another airfield, or you’ll be out of the pan and into the fire.

peterburkimsher 6y ago

A couple of days ago I discovered DeOldify [0], so I decided to colourise the pictures from this article. No copyright infringement intended, IANAL but I guess these are old enough to be public domain by now. https://imgbox.com/ED7IqzyD https://imgbox.com/ED7IqzyD https://imgbox.com/9kUgPmJa https://imgbox.com/9kUgPmJa https://imgbox.com/Jt1ngFre https://imgbox.com/Jt1ngFre https://imgbox.com/RElPFDJf https://imgbox.com/RElPFDJf I've also started colourising photos of my grandpa's 1937 cycling tour of Germany, Austria, and Italy [1]. To make peace, we must actively reach out and befriend all kinds of people. I'm thankful for communities like this where we can all learn from one another without discrimination. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24162561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24162561 [1] http://drmarionb.free.fr/1937CyclingTour/ http://drmarionb.free.fr/1937CyclingTour/

samatman 6y ago
This is very cool. I'm pretty sure the flags in the first photo weren't that color, however...
- peterburkimsher 6y ago
  I'm sure they're red! It's interesting to see the limits of the AI. If I were better at art, I'd try to fix it manually, but I'm sure that I'd just end up making it look fake.

macintux 6y ago

More technical information: https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/masaaki-iinuma/ https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/tag/masaaki-iinuma/ And a lovely illustration of the route, curiously absent from both articles, can be found here: https://www.oldtokyo.com/tokyo-london-world-record-flight-1937/ https://www.oldtokyo.com/tokyo-london-world-record-flight-19... Mitsubishi, of course, also made a famous long-range fighter. Per Chuck Hawks: > Not only could the Zero out fight any Allied fighter, it also out-ranged them. Many people do not realize that the Zero was the world's first long range escort fighter. Zeros flew long range bomber escort missions during the war in China, before the Pacific war even began. If the Germans had the long range A6M2 Zero instead of the short range Bf 109E, the outcome of the Battle of Britain might have been very different. https://www.chuckhawks.com/best_fighter_planes.htm https://www.chuckhawks.com/best_fighter_planes.htm

cafard 6y ago
Wasn't that range bought in part by the omission of protection comparable to what e.g. Grummans had?