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Oshkosh Zero

Really excellent photographs!

If it is essentially a "New Build", then that might explain the smooth skin. The original Zero used a VERY thin gauge aluminum which tended to ripple and bend rather easily. Perhaps a thicker gauge was used on this aircraft?

FWIW, the original Sakae engine was about 1700 cubic inch displacement and good for about 950 HP tops in this model. The later engines offered nominally more power, but in comparing their output at altitude, there wasn't all that much of an improvement. Trying to quantify their actual performance isn't easy. There are too many contradictory reports.

Of all the models of the Zero, I prefer the A6M5 model 52a (Koh) the best. Weight was still fairly low but it carried more ammunition 125 rounds each for the cannons instead of the pitiful 60 rounds each (3 squirts or so) for the earlier planes.

- Ivan.
 
A Zero was shipped to NZ earlier this year for the Wanaka Air Show. I caught it in Tauranga just before it left to fly down south.

DSC_0024.jpg
 
Ivan said:
Really excellent photographs!

If it is essentially a "New Build", then that might explain the smooth skin. The original Zero used a VERY thin gauge aluminum which tended to ripple and bend rather easily. Perhaps a thicker gauge was used on this aircraft?

FWIW, the original Sakae engine was about 1700 cubic inch displacement and good for about 950 HP tops in this model. The later engines offered nominally more power, but in comparing their output at altitude, there wasn't all that much of an improvement. Trying to quantify their actual performance isn't easy. There are too many contradictory reports.

Of all the models of the Zero, I prefer the A6M5 model 52a (Koh) the best. Weight was still fairly low but it carried more ammunition 125 rounds each for the cannons instead of the pitiful 60 rounds each (3 squirts or so) for the earlier planes.

- Ivan.
Click to expand...

Ivan,

I was thinking the same thing when I saw the skin. I remember the Zero at the Naval Air Museum and wow was I so shocked by how paper thin the skin was on it!

It was way thinner than the skin on my Skyhawk!

And this was an aircraft that weighed more and designed to go three times faster than my Skyhawk!

Compared it to the skin thickness on the same structural spots on the Wildcat, Hellcat, and Corsair, and it was amazing how much thinner it was for the Zero.

The amount of horsepower you get above 10,000 feet has far more to do with the capabilities of your turbo-supercharger than anything else.

Perfect example is the P-47. It was a bit pedestrian below 15,000 feet. But, that huge fuselage was designed for one thing -- to house the largest and most capable turbo-supercharger in the war! And that fact alone meant despite having the same engine as the Hellcat and Corsair, at high altitude, the P-47 was a world beater!

Same reason why despite having two of the same engine as the P-40, the P-38 was orders of magnitude faster and with superior climb rate!

The simple ability to compress the outside air to same as near sea level makes all the difference in the world. That's the reason why the conflict exists in the horsepower outputs of the later series of Sakae engines.

The -5 may indeed have been the best, but did you know that the pilots who flew the Zero the entire war and survived universally hated it! They beefed up the leading edge of the wings to increase the dive speed, but the pilot hated that it weighed more because of that. It was all a matter of culture. The pilots wanted the dive speed less than the loss of performance everywhere else.

Ken
 
jmig said:
There is one at the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH but it may not be flyable.
Click to expand...

There are a number of "real" ones not in flying condition. The NAM in Pensacola also has one.

I put real in quotes, because every single one of them have something relatively new -- if nothing else at least paint! A coat of DuPont Jel-Glo makes the plane a lot better looking that the vastly inferior pants used in World War II.

Cheers,

Ken
 
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