The Zero, an Aussie design???

[Billy_Bishop]

Where thee any instances when the "Zero" came up against the Spitfire in WWII? *I think it is pretty well agreed that the Spit could out manouver a 109. *How did it do with the Zero?

There were quite a few, and in the first encounters, the Spitfire pilots got a rude awakening.

VBR,

Al Lowe

[Barrett]

Chris Shores has dealt with the Darwin Spitfires against A6Ms, and it wasn't pretty. Joe Foss spoke to the RAAF squadrons between his tours at Guadalcanal and cautioned Caldwell Co. about overconfidence. He noted a tendency to think that since "a red-necked American yahoo" (Joe's own description) could bag 20+ Japs in a Wildcat, the Spits must ergo do far better. Many of the RAAF pilots were vets of N Africa who assumed that they'd have the same advantages against the Japs as they had against the Germans and Italians. As Joe said "If you try to turn with a Zero he'll eat your lunch." IIRC in the early combats the Zeroes outshot the Spits about 8-1.

[Billy_Bishop]

Bish,
During 1976-77, I was a member of Jimmy Nissen and Walt Adams ack emma crew at Meadow Lark Field, Livermore Ca..
It was there that I heard the following tale.
Gen. Hap Arnold and Howard Hughs had a business lunch scheduled, Hughs didn't show up, Arnold was so upset that he awarded the Armys Pursuit Aircraft Contract to Boeing, for the P-26. *Hughs then sold his plans to Japan, which were the basis for the zero-sens origin.

Yup, I actually heard that one from my father. And HE didn't believe it either. The way my father figured it, someone didn't like Howard Hughes enough that they hoped to get him in hot water.

VBR,

Al Lowe

[leo]

How anyone could look at a P-26 and the Zero and believe that the beautifully proportioned Zero could have been derived from the angular and primitive P26 is amazing.

[Barrett]

Tyson: Well I'll be hawgtied and hornswaggled! Our NW biplane club RON'd at Meadowlark about that time: Walt Adams put on THE dangdest aerobatic show I ever saw in his Nieuport 11--all under 800' cause of an overlapping traffic pattern, I believe. Mrs. Adams said they kept the spare LeRhone under their bed! Walt was SOME aviator!

[Billy_Bishop]

How anyone could look at a P-26 and the Zero and believe that the beautifully proportioned Zero could have been derived from the angular and primitive P26 *is amazing.

Actually Leo, the idea was that the Zero came from the design that lost to the P-26. Hughes' company was competing against Boeing for the fighter contract. 8)

VBR,

Al Lowe

[leo]

Sorry, Al! I have been into the catnip too much *lately and often don't make much sense. *Does anyone have a picture of the Hughes entry which lost out to Boeing?

[Barrett]

"I don't know but I've been told": Some Japanese a/c engines used English threads for spark plugs because Ours were so much better than Theirs. A couple of SW Pacific vets have mentioned over the year that US a/c downed in enemy territory nearly always had their plugs removed.
Nice thing about copying the R-985: it greatly simplifies things for powerplants in the four Ki-43s being built in Dallas!

[Billy_Bishop]

Someone is building four Oscars?? WHo, what, when, where, WHY???...why not!!!

VBR,

Al

One aircraft that was also very often quoted to be the basis for the Zero (but not yet mentioned here) was the Vought V-143. This was a design with a rather long history, starting as the Northrop 3A in 1935. The first prototype of that one was lost over the Pacific during a test flight, with no trace ever found (Now that´s something for a conspiracy theory). The design was then bought over by Vought as the V-141. Later a modified version was build as the V-143, and the sole prototype of that one was sold to the Japanese Navy. As there was even a remote similarity between the Zero and the V-143 undercarriage, the copy story was widely quoted - again, there seems to be no truth in it.

Volker