Kyushu J7W Shinden
The Kyushu J7W1 Shinden ("Magnificent Lightning") was an Imperial Japanese Navy interceptor prototype of radical layout: the main wing sat at the rear of the fuselage, a smaller wing at the nose, and a radial engine in the rear fuselage drove a pusher propeller. Designed under Captain Masaoki Tsuruno and built by Kyushu Hikoki, it was ordered into production before it flew, but engine cooling problems and the collapse of Japanese industry delayed the first flight until 3 August 1945. Tsuruno flew it three times, for 45 minutes in total, before the war ended; no production aircraft were completed, it never entered service, the second prototype never flew, and the first prototype survives at the National Air and Space Museum.
Why It Mattered
The National Air and Space Museum calls the Kyushu J7W1 Shinden the only aircraft of canard configuration that any combatant ordered into production during the Second World War. It was conceived as a short-range, high-speed interceptor to counter American B-29 Superfortress bombing raids on mainland Japan. So urgent was the need that the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered the type into production before it had flown, planning to build 150 a month at two plants. In the event, the Shinden first flew on 3 August 1945, flew twice more, and never passed the early prototype stage; the war ended days after its last flight.
Design Notes
In the Shinden's layout, the small foreplane sat at the nose and the main wing at the very rear of the fuselage — the arrangement designers call a canard. Its radial engine was mounted backwards in the rear half of the fuselage, driving a six-blade pusher propeller on an extended drive shaft. With the propeller at the tail, the design needed a tricycle landing gear, and a small auxiliary wheel was fixed beneath each vertical fin. Armament was four 30 mm Type 5 cannon in the nose, whose weight helped to balance the engine and propeller mounted at the rear. The engine was a Mitsubishi Ha-43 18-cylinder radial rated at 2,130 hp for takeoff, and the quoted top speed of 470 mph and ceiling of 39,000 feet were projected figures that flight testing never reached. From the beginning, Tsuruno intended the ultimate version of the design to be turbojet-powered.
Operational History
The design originated with Captain Masaoki Tsuruno of the Imperial Japanese Navy's technical staff, and his team proved the layout with three wooden MXY6 canard gliders, which began flight trials in the fall of 1943. The Navy ordered Kyushu Hikoki to design the interceptor — a firm chosen, the museum records, for its availability rather than its experience — and work began in June 1944. The first prototype was completed in April 1945, but engine cooling problems, delays in delivering critical equipment and the general collapse of Japanese industry kept the aircraft grounded for months more. Tsuruno made the first flight on 3 August 1945 and flew the Shinden twice more, on 6 and 9 August; in all it logged 45 minutes airborne, and he never raised the landing gear. Even in those few minutes, faults showed: the aircraft pulled hard right when full power was applied at takeoff, and the propeller and its long drive shaft vibrated strongly. The war ended six days after the final flight. The second prototype was delivered but never flew, the production order produced no further aircraft, and the Shinden never entered service.
Afterlife
The aircraft that survives is the first prototype: naval intelligence specialists dismantled it and shipped it to the United States at the end of 1945, along with about 145 other Japanese aircraft, for testing and evaluation. It was never flown in the United States, so far as any record shows. It is now held by the National Air and Space Museum and is on display in the museum's World War II Aviation exhibition at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The fuselage is the part on show; the remaining structure stays in storage until a planned preservation project can bring the pieces back together. In recent years, Japanese builders have also produced two full-scale replicas of the aircraft.