Kayaba Katsuodori

The story of Kayaba Katsuma

Before World War II (1939-1945), "ramjet" aircraft propulsion had dominated aeronautical engineers for some time. Its history was around the First World War (1914-1918), but the concept was too advanced for the material at the time. This arrangement essentially requires the engine to use its forward motion to compress the incoming air and generate the required forward thrust (so it doesn't rely on an axial compressor arrangement to pressurize the gas).

One of the engine's inherent limitations is its inability to generate thrust at zero airspeed - negating its value during takeoff and requiring the use of the kind of auxiliary thrust packages that rocket engines provide.

Before World War II, scientists around the world were working on the prospect of ramjets, and their mysteries did not escape the interest of Japanese engineers. In 1937, a team was formed to further study the concept with the aim of producing a viable, inexpensive military aircraft.

This work continued into the war years, and demand for such aircraft increased only when American bombers began to appear regularly over Japanese cities.

The result of this effort is the

Kayaba Katsuodori, a single-seat ramjet-interceptor platform with a short, tailless fuselage configuration and a swept-wing main aircraft. The cockpit will remain forward, giving the pilot excellent visibility. The main aircraft mounted in the middle are fixed forward midships, each tip is covered with small vertical stabilizers. The ramjet propulsion system is buried in the tubular fuselage, and a rocket support system (consisting of four externally fixed rocket pods) will be used.

The rocket pods are mounted under the wing roots and, once exhausted, are discarded. After reaching the desired speed, the aircraft will continue to fly using the ramjet engine, with an estimated flight time of approximately 30 minutes. For the intake of the ramjet, the nose section was equipped with an air intake.

Instead of a traditional landing gear, the aircraft will glide limply home and land on belly-mounted skids. The ramjet engine considered for the project became the Kayaba Model 1, which promised 1,655 pounds of thrust.

As the aircraft never reached prototype, performance specs were estimated to include a top speed of 560 mph and a rate of climb of approximately 11,000 feet per minute. The latter will prove to be of good quality in interception missions. The service cap is listed as 49,215 feet.

Dimensions are an overall length of 14.7 feet, a wingspan of 29.5 feet and a height of 6 feet. Empty weight is 1,875 lbs and listed load weight is 6,615 lbs.

As an interceptor trying to engage very large, slow-moving (but well-defended) targets, it has been observed that it can fully arm jets with 2 x 30mm Ho-301 series guns - a suitable arrangement, Even the high-flying and technologically advanced Boeing B-29 "Superfortress" has been known since mid-1944. The gun will be embedded in the sides of the nose.

Construction of the Katsuodori continued until 1943, and construction of a working prototype was planned to begin the following year. By 1944, however, Japan's fortunes in the war had deteriorated, and the authorities' attention turned to more viable military weapons, such as the Army Ki-202 "Sharp Sword", a type based on the German wartime Messerschmitt Me 163 "Komet" The rocket-powered interceptor .

This marked the end of the road for small ramjet interceptors.

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