Country of origin:

Japan

Description:

Single-seat fighter

Power Plant:

One 739 kw (990 hp) Nakijima Ha-25 14-cylinder two-row air-cooled radial engine

Specifications:

Armament:

Two 12.7 mm (0.5 in) Ho-103 (Type 1) machine guns with 250 rounds per gun in forward fuselage; provision for two 15 kg (33 lb) bombs on underwing racks.

History:

The ‘Oscar’, as it was known to the Allies, proved to be a very successful fighter in combat early in its career. Designed by Professor Hideo Hokawi and Yawumi Koyama around the new Nakajima Ha-25 radial engine, the prototype of the series began flight testing in January 1939. These early tests revealed gross inadequacies in the design, and major design changes were made in order to make the type suitable for military service. The first pre-production aircraft was completed in November 1939, but testing revealed that further changes were necessary to the design, and it was not until the final aircraft in the pre-production series was flown in September 1940 with combat flaps of the Fowler type that the aircraft met the required standards.

On 8 December 1941 the Hayabusa entered action in Malaya, and on the 12th of that month a force of these aircraft attacked a number of Brewster Buffaloes of No 21 Squadron, RAAF, at Sungei Patami airfield, destroying nearly all the aircraft that were on the strip, these being the survivors after a previous attack had destroyed two and damaged five. On 22 December eighteen Hayabusas attacked twelve Buffaloes of No 453 Squadron, RAAF, and showed their supremacy by destroying five and damaging four aircraft.

Production of the Hayabusa continued throughout the war, and ceased at the end of hostilities, at which time some 5,919 aircraft of all models had been built. For manoeuvrability, the Hayabusa had no competitor, but its light construction, which led to its lack of ability to take punishment, was its ultimate downfall in battle, especially against the heavily armed American-built fighters which entered service in the Pacific Theatre later in the war. The type operated from bases in New Guinea and was used as escort for Japanese bombers attacking northern Australia. A small number are known to have been shot down on Australian soil.

A number of examples were captured in damaged condition on wartime Japanese strips in New Guinea and New Britain and conveyed to the ATAIU (Allied Technical Air Intelligence Unit) at what became known as Hangar 7 at Eagle Farm, Brisbane, QLD where at least two were built from the wrecks of three and flown for testing purposes by RAAF and USAAF personnel as XJ-002 and XJ-004. It may well be further Ki.43 wrecks were shipped to Australia for evaluation and to use for spare parts. The two airworthy Ki.43s were later shipped to the United States for further testing at Anacostia in Washington DC but have not survived.

A small number of Hayabusas survive. The wreck of one, a Ki.43-IIb salvaged from New Guinea, is on display at the Treloar Annexe of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, ACT. Another was a machine with the 11th Sentai and was found four miles from Vanakunau airfield, Rabaul on New Britain in 1945 by members of the RAAF where it was undergoing servicing by the Japanese 14th Army Repair Depot. It was crated, sent to Australia and placed in storage at RAAF Richmond, NSW. It was offered to and accepted on 14 July 1949 by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and stored. It is believed to have had an extensive combat history. It was sold to R G Curtiss in 1953, and to Sid Marshall at Bankstown, NSW in 1962. It spent some years in his hangar at Bankstown, at one time hanging from the roof. After the demise of Mr Marshall it was taken over by Jack Davidson and later went to the Col Pay collection at Scone in 1985 for restoration. However, this did not occur.

Later it went to the Alpine Fighter Collection in New Zealand at Wanaka. This machine was a Ki.43-1b Type 1 (with the number 750 on the tail) and was exchanged with the Alpine Fighter Collection at Wanaka, New Zealand, for a Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk. In the early 1990s, following the overhaul of the engine in Auckland, the Ki.43 was restored to taxiable condition and on a number of occasions was photographed doing high-speed taxi runs. On one occasion in 1996 it made a short hop off the runway. The New Zealand registration ZK-OSC was allotted. However, it was exported to the United States where it was made airworthy with the Flying Heritage Collection in Seattle and it was later placed on display at Paine Airfield in Washington.

In more recent years further examples were recovered from the Pacific Islands and conveyed to the United States for restoration. The Texas Airplane Factory has built three replicas, these aircraft being moved to the Casa Grande facility in Arizona in June 2005, for completion, the first re-production suffering an undercarriage collapse on its second test flight but was subsequently repaired. An example survives in the Indonesian Air Force Museum in Yogyakarta. Another Ki.43-IIb, which was captured in Hollandia in May 1944 by US forces (thought to be c/n 5894), was restored using parts from other aircraft. This machine was loaned to the EAA Museum at Oshkosh in Wisconsin in the 1960s and in recent years has been placed on display at the Pima Air Museum in Arizona.