The Tachikawa Ki-94 was a single-seat fighter-

Interceptor Interceptor may refer to: Vehicles * Interceptor aircraft (or simply "interceptor"), a type of point defense fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft * Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a police car * ...

aircraft project undertaken by the Tachikawa Aircraft Company and to be operated by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

. The project refers to two aircraft designs: the Ki-94-I and the Ki-94-II, both of which did not advance beyond the mock-up and prototype stage respectively.

Design and development

Ki-94-I

The first was a twin-boom

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 con ...

with two Mitsubishi Ha211 18-cylinder engines, driving two 4-blade propellers in a

push-pull configuration An aircraft constructed with a push-pull configuration has a combination of forward-mounted tractor (pull) propellers, and backward-mounted ( pusher) propellers. Historical The earliest known examples of "push-pull" engined-layout aircraft incl ...

. The very heavy armament that should have been mounted on the aircraft (two 37 mm/1.46 in and two 30 mm/1.18 in

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

,. should have been enough to make short work of most US

heavy bomber Heavy bombers are bomber aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry (usually bombs) and longest range (takeoff to landing) of their era. Archetypal heavy bombers have therefore usually been among the larges ...

s of the era. Notwithstanding the outstanding prospective performance, which however was judged as "unduly optimistic" by the technical department of the Japanese Army Air Force, this design was judged too complex by the technical department and the design was discarded.

Ki-94-II

The second Ki-94 design, made by a team also under

Tatsuo Hasegawa Tatsuo Hasegawa (長谷川龍雄, ''Hasegawa Tatsuo'', February 8, 1916 – April 29, 2008) was a Japanese automotive engineer, and known as the development chief of the first Toyota Corolla. He built the base of the economy cars in Japan ...

as type I, chief designer of the aircraft and responsible for the used airfoil, was a more conventional single-seat, piston-engine monoplane fighter, developed for the

Imperial Japanese Army Air Force 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 ...

along the same requirements as the Nakajima Ki-87, which had been the Army's fall-back design for the original Ki-94. Intended to counter B-29 raids, it was optimized for high-altitude

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team ...

with a

pressurized {{Wiktionary Pressurization or pressurisation is the application of pressure in a given situation or environment. Industrial Industrial equipment is often maintained at pressures above or below atmospheric. Atmospheric This is the process by ...

cockpit and heavy armament. This design was approved by the Koku Hombu, and the aircraft was designated Ki-94-II (the scrapped earlier Ki-94 design was named the Ki-94-I). An order was placed for one static test airframe, three prototypes, and eighteen pre-production aircraft. Only 2 prototypes were built in the event; the first was equipped with a single

Nakajima Ha219 The Nakajima Ha219, (also known as the Ha-44 under the unified designation system, BH by the company and NK11A by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS)), was a late war Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF) 18-cylinder air-cooled r ...

a-44engine, driving a 4-blade propeller because the 6-blade one was not ready. The second prototype was to be fitted with a 6-blade propeller. The war's end however stopped the construction of the second prototype and also found the first prototype still being readied for its maiden flight, the Ki-94-II never taking to the air.

Specifications (Ki-94-II (estimated performance))

References

Notes

Bibliography

* . First edition from 1970 * *

External links

Webpage devoted to Tatsuo Hasegawa by his son Akio Hasegawa, MD
{{Japanese Army Aircraft Designation System 1940s Japanese fighter aircraft 1940s Japanese experimental aircraft Twin-engined push-pull aircraft Ki-94 Twin-engined piston aircraft Low-wing aircraft Twin-boom aircraft Inverted gull-wing aircraft