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Kawasaki Ki-64 As with most national air forces, many unconventional designs were put up on the drawing board and many have failed. Of those designs, plenty of them have interesting concepts or, at the very least, a lot of potential. Unfortunately for project planes, war conditions often put an end to promising ideas. One such promising design was Kawasaki's Ki-64. Despite being busy with other projects, the Ki-60 and Ki-61, and trying to remedy issues with the Ki-45, Kawasaki's Takeo Doi conceived a very unusual concept in 1939. Because the IJAAF required more conventional aircraft, the project had to be shelved until October 1940 when a new specification was called for. This new set of requirements called for a high-speed fighter that could reach 700 km/h at 5,000m and climb to that altitude in 5 minutes. Working with the Akashi engine plant, Takeo Doi decided to use the 2,350hp Kawasaki Ha-201 engine, which was actually two Ha-40 twelve cylinder liquid-cooled engines mounted in tandem and connected by a drive shaft. One engine in front of the pilot, while the second was behind him (similar to the P-39 Airacobra) and they drove two contra-rotating three-blade propellers. The front propeller was drive by the rear engine and was a variable-pitch type and the rear propeller, driven by the front engine, was of the fixed-pitch kind. Another interesting feature was the steam vapour cooling system which used the wing and flap surfaces to cool. The front engine was cooled by the left wing and the rear engine by the right wing. Each wing carried a 70L tank of water for cooling, a fuel tank and one 20mm Ho-5 cannon. Extensive wing tunnel tests were undertaken using a modified Ki-61 and it was deemed satisfactory. The prototype aircraft was completed in 1943 and flight tests were performed in December, although only 5 test flights were made before a fire broke out in the rear engine and an emergency landing was performed by the pilot. The engine was sent to Akashi for repair, which was never completed, while the airframe went to Gifu and was captured at the end of the war, along with the cooling system. A proposed production version with a more powerful Ha-201 engine, rated at 2,800 HP, and was planned to use two electrically-operated, constant-speed, contra-rotating propellers. It was estimated that the top speed of that model, named the Ki-64 KAI, would reach 800 km/h but it never made it to production.  General Characteristics: Crew: 1 Length: 11.03m Wingspan: 13.5m Height: 4.25m Powerplant: 1 x Kawasaki Ha-201 twenty-four cylinder inverted-vee liquid-cooled engine rated at 2,350 HP on takeoff Loaded Weight: 5,100 kg Performance: Maximum Speed: 690 km/h @ 5000m Range: 1000 km Ceiling: 12,000 m Armament: 4 x 20mm Ho-5 cannons (2 in the wings and 2 in the fuselage)
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