A Revolutionary Carrier Fighter | Mitsubishi A5M "Claude" [Aircraft Overview #41] 

Here's an interesting aircraft that was Poland's most capable fighter aircraft that was available, the PZL P.11.

I'd be interested in seeing one of your videos about either the Mig-3 or the Yak-3. Opposite ends of the performance spectrum of Soviet fighters during that period. It would be especially interesting as the Normandie-Nien group chose the Yak-3 as their aircraft out of all available allied fighters (to the best of my memory anyway).

Could you do a video discussing the Kyushu J7W Shinden? I think it's a really unique pusher prop fighter and I'd be interested to see what information you could dig up about it's performance and how It could have stacked up to other late war planes being such an unconventional design

I’m curious about the nature of China’s warlord Air Force. The nationalists had their own air force for the fighting over Shanghai and then help from the soviets in Nanjing. Is that correct? Did some of the subordinate warlords to the KMT have air forces of their own? Did warlords ever smuggle planes into China? Do the soviets or Americans provide more air support after 1941?

Can you use imperial statistics quickly after the metric ones? KPH then MPH etc.. I know 80 is 50 and multiplies, but my head calculator is slow these days. 🙂

It was all seat of the pants designing, no computer modelling about, of course.

And then they turned all civilian aircraft into pickles. Funniest shit I've ever seen

@@huwzebediahthomas9193 Lots of computations with slide rules and wind tunnel testing, not so much "seat of the pants" reckoning. Good engineering has always required computational data.

@@Kingwoodish Jup. If the maths check out it is likely going to work. If it doesn't you may have applied the maths wrong or you just discovered a new phenomenon.

@@Snake-ms7sj It's very much easier to copy than it is to invent. That goes for anyone.

Then why did the IJN escort, land and supply all those IJA army units?

@@nowthenzen Why did Stalinist Russia and the UK ally? You can work with people that you are mutually hostile with when you have goals in common. The Imperial Japanese Army knew that the Imperial Japanese Navy's top radio codes were broken and couldn't be bothered to tell the Navy.

@@nowthenzen You do realize the IJA literally built its own amphibious assault ships and even light aircraft carriers because the IJN refused to let it use the navy ships?

@@bkjeong4302 You realize the navy operated their own land based combat forces? Talk about a system built around dysfunction!

Japanese senior officers were literally caught in plots trying to assassinate each other. It's really not up for debate that their "system" was a complete mess.

Another example of the stupidity of Nazism: lose some of your brightest & best because of ridiculous beliefs.

@@TheCatBilbo Also an illustration of the odd cross over of public and private behaviour in Germany at that time. Ernst Heinkel, a keen Nazi, appointed David to the job in Japan when Nazi laws were excluding jews from professional jobs in Germany. When Holland was occupied in 1940, Schatzki's former colleague and boss from Junkers and Lufthansa, Carl August von Gablenz, visited him to warn about Nazi plans to round up jews. Carl August von Gablenz wasn't a Nazi but was mainstream Prussian military background, former cavalryman, aviator in WW1 and WW2, Highly decorated, Director of Lufthansa, Luftwaffe General in charge of training and, apparently, a man concerned enough to warn someone who had worked for him 7 years before. David and Schatzki both lived to 93 years of age.

@@IntrospectorGeneral You have to remember Heinkel's grudge against the regime due to the whole He-112/100 fiasco. The Junkers thing was completely different. Those who had worked with Hugo Junkers had a steeper learing curve on being humane and hating the Nazis than most. The Old Man was stripped off his company by the Party, because of that. Alas, you have a point about the public and private life cross-over Agreed.

Great film thanks for the mention

A fantastic Studio Ghibli movie, as always.

@@anzaca1 >as always hah nope

Ian K. Baker's guide to Japanese aircraft colours and Nick Millman's blog are the two trove treasure references I use all the time.

And some of them are also sleek and beautiful, like the Dewoitine D.500 series (D.500, D.501, D.510).

@@Cuccos19 / Ahh… the French: what might have been. Of course now they have the sexy Rafale.

Smol and stubby lol

you always see them in old school pacific war PC games....

Well, time to go diving I guess

Do the plans exist? Can we erm... Make a whole new one?

You can find a MS 2004 Flight Sim version of the A5M4 at Sim Aviation as a free download.

the state of Fujikawa Maru (as the other wrecks in the lagoon) seems to be deteriorating rather fast. Comparing to my first time dives there in 2012, in 2017 the ships were in visibly worse shape. Wonder how long it will take for them starting collapsing en masse. In other words, hurry up and go dive Truk while you can!

If I were to build a full-scale replica of a Japanese fighter aircraft, I think the A5M4 would be my first choice.

While i wholeheartedly agree with your statement, i still cant deal with automatic transmissions in trucks 😂 utterly infuriating to drive especially if you have to go from forward to reverse or vice versa quickly, im sure they are better in most ways, but i feel like they teach the driver bad habbits. Not managing engine rpm correctly when coming up to an incline or decline, over reliance on wheel brakes instead of engine braking etc. im unsure if im just stuck in the past, or if its valid. To me it completely seems like its causing a lack of attention to whats actually going on outside of the windscreen, which is made worse by the giant glossy glare rectangles manufacturers put in the dash these days (the infotainment screens which i also hate) 😂

same :)

I’m not entirely sure myself, but I would guess it’s to do with lift acting only horizontally, meaning the extra surface area of the bent wings would not really produce much more lift than a wing of the same wingspan, but have higher drag.

The rationale for the design on the Corsair was to fit the biggest prop they could while maintaining carrier-specific features iirc

Not claiming to be an expert, but I believe W-wings have an advantage in terms of stability and maneuvering, particularly in dive and climb. However, as Big Slav Boy points out, it's something of a trade-off, and you have to get them dead right to be really effective. Pulling in the wingspan on a carrier-based aircraft (prior to folding wings) is obviously an advantage, but you're still looking for overall performance.

@@elanthys Generally considered a myth these days - it did aid in prop clearance, but not specifically for the prop, more for the landing gear. I’d imagine the same exact consideration was made for the early A5M prototypes, as the shorter fixed landing gear generated much less drag and were stronger, with a wide stance. As a carrier aircraft, the Corsair designers would have wanted the same; shortest landing gear possible with the widest track possible. There are other considerations as well, such as wing-folding and all the intercooler/oil cooler inlets in the inner wing leading edges. As a MUCH more advanced aircraft, I’m sure solving the aerodynamic issues wasn’t a big deal; the flaps on the Corsair are also massive.

@@EstorilEm It's not really a myth, rather a more complete explanation as to how the inverted gull wing of the Chance Vought Corsair came to be. Besides this wasn't even unknown. I'm pretty sure I've heard Discovery Channel's Great Planes from around 1990 allude to these more specific reasons for the inverted gull wing.

I watched John Wayne’s 1942 Flying Tigers movie and there was a scene where he was teaching the new pilots on aircraft recognition and one of these aircraft that they were to be wary of was a Nakajima (a Ki-27 Nate). But the pic he used was that of an A5M Claude.

@@swenhtet2861 Even with clear photos. They still looked the same to me.

US intelligence was way off at that time the KI-43 Oscar was a formidable fighter with outstanding maneuvering probably the best in the world in its time in the early 40's however it was overshadowed by the A6M2 ZERO being more famous due to it being a army fighter and not running into allied carrier fighters as it was land based . By the time the US navy got close it had been replaced by more modern types .

@@proofbox a bit undergunned and fragile compared to its nemesis the P-40

When the FW-190 first came out RAF Intelligence thought it was some sort of Curtis. During one of Johnnie Johnsons after action debriefs he was told this & he said 'if that's what they are can I have one?'.

Then check the Greg’s Airplanes page for a mind blow and a solid dose of engineering.

excellent choice!

Yep but later Chance Vought fixed that Problem with a small Tab on the Wing leading edge

Or perhaps a little Heinkelish...

@@birlyballop4704Definitely looks Heinkel AND Supermarinish

There's a movie on it, well the designer, it's called When The Wind Rises I believe its a good movie, one of my personal favorites, I'd recommend you check it out.

@@MeButGoblin thank you for the recommendation

I think most pilots didn't return because they weren't trained properly, since the Japanese doctrine was to not get hit, which isn't something a rookie can pull off, while an experienced pilot definitely could, and another big issue was the fact that Japanese pilots didn't take parachutes with them. American planes weren't that we'll armoured, Japanese cannon fire could punch through those armour plates. But the Americans had the right pilots for their doctrine and they actually tried to not unnecessarily kill their pilots by just going "oh you're going down? Do it for the emperor my homie."

Yeah tell that to Saburo Sakai who got heavily injured, survived the war and never became a kamikaze pilot. Your post is nothing but American propaganda. Safety systems weren't a requirement in any fighters from World War 1 and World War 2. Their intended roles were meant to attack not to last longer. Making it last longer is up to the pilot's job to make it happen. If you're going to make the plane heavier just for better survivability because you lack situational awareness when majority of you fly in formation it doesn't matter. American Fighter planes were inferior from German Fighter planes and majority of the modern American technology were taken from the Germans fighting in all 3 fronts against multiple nations.

You save height and weight, while keeping a broad control surface.

When The Wind Rises is one of my favorite movies.

As a flight sim aircraft it's pretty nimble, good climb rate and fairly fast.

There's reasons for the underrepresentations though. The "West" barely ever faced the A5M. Over China they didn't and in the Kamikaze attacks it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't care for the type or if they thought it was a Zero. Meanwhile the "West" faced the Ki 27 in great numbers over Southeast Asia in late 1941 and "42 great numbers. I believe the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) only employed 3 squadrons of Ki-43s in that area, because it was still a new aircraft (and one with a major defect).

I believe the Dutch and Dutch East Indies and the early Guadacanal campaigns faced some A5M4 fighters.

Reminds me more of a stuka

@@libertycowboy2495 The gear, yes indeed !

That would be cool nobody talks about that.

Yes, at Truk in hold #2 of the Fujikawa Maru there is a A5M (the version with the enclosed cockpit) along with the A6Ms. The landing gear and engine are in the starboard aft mid gallery of hold #1. The plane may have been light gray but I did not look for a paint chip when there. I have read that the A5M was popular as a "squadron hack" to fly between airfields. Training aircraft may have been painted differently. The RAF often painted the undersides of trainers yellow. I doubt they were left with "untreated" bare aluminum skins. Salt water and mist is very bad for aluminum so it would have been painted. The USAAF used unpainted polished aircraft late in WW2 from the idea that a rough paint job added weight and drag to the airframe. (the test may have been affected by comparing a plane with the worst paint job and the cleanest polished airframe available ) But keeping up the surface adds maintaince. In classic aircraft that are left bare polished aluminum, from what the owners have told me, they have to polish them often and even a casual hand print will leave a mark. And with all that polishing eventually you will thin the skin to the point it has to be replaced. (each polishing microscopically removes metal)

Sorry for late reply Yes it shot down 4 to 8 Japanese planes during the war and one pilot made ace with 3 kills on this plane and 2 on others. This information is not online however, you need to get the Nationalist Chinese Aces book from Osprey to learn more. Hope this helps.

I'm pretty sure they basically only fought the Army fighters, not the navy fighters.

The thinking is that they misidentified ki43's and probably ki27's as a5m and a6m's

@@Colt45hatchback I can see the Ki-27 and A5M since they're basically the same shape. A Ki-43 and a Zero are nothing alike lol. I guess it is everyone at sea is shrieking about japanese zeros kicking ass so when they got their asses kicked by Japanese planes inland; "Oh NoEs! ZeRoZ!"

@@5peciesunkn0wn Probably. If there wasn't a Navy squadron in the area, then there weren't any Zeroes in the area either.

Biplanes were good for altitude gaining and manouverability with the low power engines then. The increased power of available engines was the threshold for mono wings to be the way to go, I believe.

Im not 100% on this, but i think its to do with induced drag, like, with a monoplane you can carry more speed through the turn, as theres an extra whole wing of drag on a biplane, so overall straight and level speed might be the same, but once the wing/s are at a different angle to the direction of travel the amount of drag goes up substantially

British or Australian? As a Brit, his accent really bugs me! Although not as much as his pronunciation of 'Sino-Japanese'...

Pretty sure hes an aussie. I am, sounds like hes from here too.

@@Colt45hatchback he lives in Oz, but before I knew that, I couldn't place his accent - it's nothing like any Aussie accent I've heard before. My guess is recent immigrant (from the UK?) or possibly 'posh' Aussie? I remember Clive James saying that the posh accent over there was so like a British accent (if there is such s thing!), that when he first came over here, he thought everyone was posh!

@@paulhaynes8045 yeah im not 100% sure, might be best to ask him yourself haha, but yeah non poor/well educated aussies do tend towards a more english sounding accent, although its becoming rare. When im talking to a new person sometimes i get asked if im english, then i switch to my regular voice which sounds more like they just caught me licking the ashtrays and empty beer kegs at the back of the pub, and then they can the tell i was born here haha.

I thought Rex is a Brit living in Australia. Every "oo"-sound becomes somewhat of an "ue"-sound (at least to my non-native English hearing ears). Shad from Shadiversity (channel on medieval weaponry and such) has a similar accent and he's definitely Australian.

He is British

He doesn't sound like Drachinifel.

Looks almost nothing like a Corsair. It has an inverted gull wing and a radial engine, that's it. Everything is significantly different.

What you get when a P-26 and a Corsair have a baby.

@@ivanthemadvandal8435 inverted gull wing, radial engine, gear on the bottom of the gull wing, and blended body cockpit

@@PhoenixTwoFiftySix even those feature are extremely different. Most reverse gulls (at least the ones I know of) have the gear at that location, the A5M's gears are obviously fixed while the F4U obviously retract, the cockpit is not really any different from most planes at the time so.....

"It was almost impolite when I killed that family of five."