The was a

light bomber A light bomber is a relatively small and fast type of military bomber aircraft that was primarily employed before the 1950s. Such aircraft would typically not carry more than one ton of ordnance. The earliest light bombers were intended to dro ...

built by

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

for the

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) or Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF; ja, 大日本帝國陸軍航空部隊, Dainippon Teikoku Rikugun Kōkūbutai, lit=Greater Japan Empire Army Air Corps) was the aviation force of the Im ...

(IJAAS) in the 1930s. Its

Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

nickname was "Louise". Despite its antiquated appearance, the Ki-2 was successfully used in

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...

and in

North China North China, or Huabei () is a List of regions of China, geographical region of China, consisting of the provinces of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. Part of the larger region of Northern China (''Beifang''), it lies north ...

during the early stages of the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

, in areas where danger from enemy

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 ...

was minimal. It was later used in a

training Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or Physical fitness, fitness that relate to specific practicality, useful Competence (human resources), competencies. Training has specific goals of improving on ...

role.

Design and development

The Ki-2 was a low-wing

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

with

corrugated metal Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a bu ...

alloy decking, twin

fins A fin is a thin component or appendage attached to a larger body or structure. Fins typically function as foils that produce lift or thrust, or provide the ability to steer or stabilize motion while traveling in water, air, or other fluids. Fin ...

with

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally aircraft, air or watercraft, water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to ...

s, fixed divided

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally needed for both. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin ...

and was powered by two

Nakajima Kotobuki The Nakajima Ha1 Kotobuki (寿, "Longevity") was an aero-engine developed by Nakajima. It was a radial piston developed under licence from the Bristol Jupiter. Design and development In 1917, Chikuhei Nakajima set up the "Airplane Institute" a ...

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...

s. Maximum speed was , normal range and maximum take-off weight . Single

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) a ...

s were mounted in a semi-enclosed nose and dorsal positions and it could carry a maximum bomb load of . The Ki-2 was, like its stable mate the

Mitsubishi Ki-1 The Mitsubishi Ki-1, also known as Mitsubishi Army Type 93 Heavy Bomber, was a bomber built by Mitsubishi for the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s. The Ki-1 design was heavily based on the Junkers K 37 and a mockup was ready in August 1932, wi ...

, an adaptation of the Junkers S36 first flown in 1927. Militarized into the Junkers K37 by Junker's Swedish subsidiary AB Flygindustri at

Limhamn Limhamn () is, in an administrative sense, the southern district of Malmö Municipality in Sweden. Before 1915, Limhamn was (briefly) a town of its own. The population of Limhamn-Bunkeflo (including suburbs) is 31,000, of which 7,000 live in th ...

near

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, it was able to reach altitudes unattainable by contemporary

. However, by 1930 this advantage had been lost due to developments such as the

Bristol Bulldog The Bristol Bulldog is a British Royal Air Force single-seat biplane fighter designed during the 1920s by the Bristol Aeroplane Company. More than 400 Bulldogs were produced for the RAF and overseas customers, and it was one of the most fa ...

fighter and Junkers was unsuccessful in selling the design. In 1931, representatives of the Mitsubishi Nainenki K.K. in Japan visited the

facilities to study some of the military conversions of Junkers aircraft, and purchased the sole K37

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

S-AABP (ex D-1252 S36-prototype) as well as all development papers signing a contract for licensed production. The K37 prototype was brought to Japan and tested in combat in the

Manchurian Incident The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, known in Chinese as the 9.18 Incident (九・一八), was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, L ...

of 1931, following which the IJAAS authorized Mitsubishi to produce both heavy and light bomber variations. The

heavy bomber was a much larger new design following only the general arrangement of the K37 and first flew in August 1932. The Mitsubishi Ki-2 light bomber version, a minimally re-designed K37, flew for the first time in May 1933. The

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

was redesigned by Mitsubishi, but the wings were kept largely unchanged, except for additional

aileron An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around ...

s. Mitsubishi built total of 113 aircraft and an additional 13 aircraft were built by Kawasaki Kōkūki Kōgyō KK from 1933-1936. An up-graded version was produced in quantity as the Ki-2-II (Army Type 93-II Twin-engined Light Bomber), with nose turret and semi-retractable main landing gear and powered by two Mitsubishi Ha-8 (Army Type 94 550hp Air Cooled Radial) engines.

Operational history

Although already obsolescent by the time of its introduction, it was used with great success in the

counterinsurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...

operations of the

Pacification of Manchukuo The Pacification of Manchukuo was a Japanese counterinsurgency campaign to suppress any armed resistance to the newly established puppet state of Manchukuo from various anti-Japanese volunteer armies in occupied Manchuria and later the Communis ...

, and as well as limited use in the

in combat in

north China North China, or Huabei () is a List of regions of China, geographical region of China, consisting of the provinces of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. Part of the larger region of Northern China (''Beifang''), it lies north ...

Vulnerable to attack by enemy fighters, and replaced by aircraft with greater range and payload by the late 1930s, both versions ended their flying careers in the training role. A civilian version of the Ki-2-II named ''Ohtori'' (Phoenix) was bought by the

Asahi Shimbun is one of the four largest newspapers in Japan. Founded in 1879, it is also one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. Its circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition and ...

newspaper and made a number of long-range record-breaking and "goodwill" flights from 1936 to 1939. Registered J-BAAE, it covered the from

Tachikawa file:Autumn colors in Showa memorial park.jpg, 250px, Showa Memorial Park is a Cities of Japan, city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 184,383 in 93,428 households, and a populat ...

military air base to

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...

in 21 hours 36 minutes flying time in December 1936, and in early 1939 achieved a round-China flight of some .

Variants

; Ki-2-I (Army Type 93-I Twin-engined Light Bomber) :Initial production variant, powered by two

s; 126 built. ; Ki-2-II (Army Type 93-II Twin-engined Light Bomber) :Final production variant with nose turret and semi-retractable main landing gear, powered by two Mitsubishi Ha-8 (Army Type 94 550hp Air Cooled Radial) engines; 61 built. ; Mitsubishi : A de-militarized long-range record-breaking aircraft operated by ''

''; 1 built. Was mistakenly given the Allied reporting name of Eva or Eve. Asahi Shimbun newspaper's long-range record-breaking Mitsubishi Ohtori (demilitarized Ki-2)

Asahi Shimbun newspaper's long-range record-breaking Mitsubishi Ohtori (demilitarized Ki-2)

Operators

; *

Specifications (Ki-2-I)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * * *

External links

Junkers Aircraft of the 1920s
{{Allied reporting names Ki-02, Mitsubishi Ki-002 Low-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1933 Twin piston-engined tractor aircraft