World War II Database

1.  Bill says:
22 Jul 2011 04:37:56 PM

FLAPS DOWN, TAIL HOOK DOWN:

Nakajima B5N (Kate) recovering aboard carrier
Shokaku. Check out the trailing destroyer that acted as plane guard.
Pilot has made a very good three-point landing looks like he's cought one of the landing cables, crewmen are ready to assist in recovery of aircraft.
In 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy had the best-trained naval aviators in the world.
The majority of aviators were enlisted personnal. Before WWII about 10% of the 3500
flying personnal were officers. Other naval
pilots/officers were promoted enlisted men,
officers and reserve officers.
Non-flying officers were maintenance and operations officers. Most of the officers came from the Japanese Naval Academy or other officers who had a love of flying, and transferred to carrier or land-based units.

ONLY THE VERY VERY BEST:

In the 1930s on average 1500 men applied for
pilot training 70 were accepted! of which only 25 graduated from training.

PRE-WAR TRAINING:

Until 1941 flight training took about one year, the student pilot had 44 flight hours,
primary flight training, advanced training worked up to another 60 hours of flight, and operational training took between five to six months on average the pilot would have between 250 to 300 or more flight hours.
Officers would have over 400 flight hours by this time in the training cycle.

Each carrier had its own air group made up of
torpedo bombers, dive bombers and fighters.
The Japanese called dive bombers (carrier bombers) and torpedo planes were called
(carrier attack planes) and fighters.

2.  Bill says:
11 Jan 2012 11:04:12 AM

FIND YOUR WAY BACK:

The Imperial Japanese Navy equipped its aircraft with a radio returning device on all carrier aircraft. This was a twin loop
type antenna that would pickup and transmit
individual frequency from the carrier to each aircraft. pilots would follow this signal and return back to the carrier.

3.  Bill says:
11 Jan 2012 11:38:43 AM

BEFORE KATE:

When Nakajima won the design to replace the
Yokosuka B4Y Biplane bomber, they were working on the C3N1 this was an all metal
single-engine monoplane with fixed landing gear However, Nakajima realized the new B5N could perform the same roles and stopped work on the C3N1, after two prototypes were built.

BOTH DESIGNS WERE SIMILAR:

Looking at both the B5N1 and the C3N1 both
designs shared many of the same features
the B5N1 had retractable landing gear while the C3N1 had large fixed landing gear in
streamlined pants. The C3N1 disapppeared into aviation history.

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20 Jan 2020 07:42:35 PM

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5. Ted Mustard says:
18 Mar 2025 03:07:26 AM

Reference comment 3: The other contender for the IJN torpedo bomber was the Mitsubishi B5M "Mabel". Production stopped at 125 airframes, some of which saw land-based operational service in SE Asia.