An Imperial Japanese Navy specification of 1934 for a single-seat fighter with a maximum speed of 350km/h then seemed an almost unattainable target. However, Mitsubishi's Ka-14 prototype designed to this requirement, and flown for the first time on 4 February 1935, demonstrated a top speed of 450km/h in early trials. Unfortunately it had some aerodynamic shortcomings, and the inverted gull-wing of.this aircraft was replaced by a conventional low-set monoplane wing in the second prototype which, with a 436kW Nakajima Kotobuki 2-KAI-1 radial engine, was ordered into production as the Navy Type 96 Carrier Fighter Model 1 (Mitsubishi A5M1). The generally similar A5N2a which followed, powered by the 455kW Kotobuki 2-KAI-3 engine, and the A5M2b with the 477kW Kotobuki 3 engine, were regarded as the Japanese navy's most important fighter aircraft during the Sino-Japanese War. Two experimental A5M3 aircraft were flown with the Hispano-Suiza 12Xcrs engine, but the final and major production version was the A5M4, built also as the A5M4-K tandem two-seat trainer. All versions of the A5M were allocated the Allied codename 'Claude', and when production ended a total of 788 had been built by Mitsubishi, including prototypes; a further 303 were built by Watanabe (39) and the Omura Naval Air Arsenal (264). The Japanese army had also shown interest in the A5M, resulting in the evaluation of a Ki-18 prototype generally similar to the Ka-14, but although fast this was considered to be lacking in manoeuvrability. Mitsubishi produced two re-engined and improved Ki-33 prototypes but they, too, were considered insufficiently manoeuvrable and no army production contract resulted. At the beginning of the Pacific war the A5M4 was in first-line use, but its performance was found inadequate to confront Allied fighters and by the summer of 1942 all had been transferred to second-line duties, many surviving A5M4 and A5M4-Ks being used in kamikaze attacks in the closing months of the war.

3-View

A three-view drawing (752 x 925)