The Kawasaki Ki-88 was a proposed

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese World War II

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

intended for use by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force. Its anticipated performance was disappointing, and only a mock-up was completed.

Design and development

Faced with delays in development of the

Kawasaki Ki-64 The Kawasaki Ki-64 (Allied code name: Rob) was a one-off prototype of an experimental heavy, single seat, fighter. It had two unusual design features. First; it had two Kawasaki Ha-40 engines in tandem; one in the aircraft nose, the other behind ...

fighter, the Imperial Japanese Army was open in 1942 to alternative fighter designs that might reach combat units more quickly. Kawasaki proposed the Ki-88, a design inspired by the Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter then in service with the United States Army Air Forces. Kawasaki began design work on the Ki-88 in August 1942. The Ki-88 was to have a 1,117-kW (1,500-hp) Kawasaki Ha-140 engine behind its

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a Pilot in command, pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the ...

, driving a tractor

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

through an extension shaft. It was to mount a 37-mm cannon in its propeller shaft and two 20-mm cannon in its lower nose. When design work had progressed far enough to allow it, Kawasaki built a full-scale mock-up of the Ki-88, which bore a strong resemblance to the P-39. After inspection of the mockup, the Japanese calculated a maximum speed for the aircraft of 600 km/h (373 mph) at an altitude of 6,000 m (19,685 feet). This was only slightly faster than the Kawasaki Ki-61 ''Hien'' fighter, which already was in production. As a result, Kawasaki discontinued design work on the Ki-88 less than a year after beginning it.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links