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Author: Yi Pin Wen team buffalo, no authorization prohibited!
In 2013, a Miyazaki anime "The Wind Rises" was released. The film has garnered countless fans, and Miyazaki himself is a leftist author who avoids frontal shots of war in his work. The protagonist, Jiro Horikoshi, acts innocently in the movie and becomes a simple scientific researcher and a designer who loves flying machines. The film also adds a male and female love factor, and makes the picture very beautiful, while another invisible protagonist, the "Zero" fighter, only reflects part of the war scene on the side. The real-life facts about the Zero fighter and the male protagonist are not at all as beautiful as "The Wind Rises", and even very brutal.
(Designer Jiro Horikoshi and Type 96 carrier-based fighter)
In early February 1934, the Japanese military asked the aviation industry to design a fighter with a speed of more than 352 kilometers per hour and could climb to an altitude of 5 kilometers in 6 minutes and 30 seconds. Mitsubishi and Nakajima participated in the competition, and the following year Mitsubishi won the bid for the proposal. In 1936, production of this small fighter began, and it was named the Type 96 carrier-based fighter. This is the fighter model that Horikoshi Jiro first developed in the anime "The Wind Rises".
(Type 96 prototype wreckage in the anime)
The following story, children who like cartoons are unlikely to see in the movie. On September 19, 1937, 12 Type 96 fighters and invaded China, and they covered the air battle between the 2nd Joint Air Force that sneaked into Nanjing and 21 fighters of the Chinese Air Force. Since then, the aircraft has been widely used in the Battlefield of China, killing many Chinese compatriots.
(Zero Battle 21)
The Navy of Little Japan was very satisfied with the performance of the Type 96 fighter. So on May 19, 1937, a motion was thrown: it was hoped that a "universal fighter" with a speed of more than 500 kilometers per hour, a range of 3,000 kilometers, a climb to an altitude of 3 kilometers in 3 minutes and 30 seconds, better air combat performance than the Type 96, and equipped with 2 20 mm cannons, 2 7.7 mm machine guns and two 60 kg bombs. The Navy invited Nakajima Aircraft Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation to participate in the design tender. After carefully reviewing the target plan, Nakajima's men rejected the Navy and withdrew from the competition. Because according to the words of the Nakajima Aircraft Company employees: "The people of the Navy have a nervous disease!" Is the head of the person making such a request normal?! ”
Mitsubishi's designers are not sick, but their work attitude is crazy. Led by 34-year-old Jiro Horikoshi, they formed a team of 29 people with an average age of only 24 years old. The new aircraft is designed on the basis of the Type 96 fighter. They employed many bold measures to reduce the weight of the aircraft. The rivets were reduced from 3.5 mm to 3 mm, and no riveting was done where they were not needed; a large number of small holes were drilled in the aircraft components; using the latest Japanese technology "Sumitomo Metal", the material strength was 60-66 kg/mm2, which reduced the cross-sectional size as the main truss beam, making it lighter.
(Schematic of the Zero Type 32, which was mistaken by the Allies for a brand new aircraft due to a modification of the wing))
Another crazy move is well known: the removal of pilot protection, the installation of protective steel plates, and the non-self-sealing fuel tank. This is something that only a brutal militarist regime can do. So there is no need to say that Horikoshi Jiro is innocent, he designed this aircraft with complete understanding that this fighter is for the future tragic war, and the harsh target requirements of the army foreshadow the future days of peace.
(The remaining japanese Zero wreckage after the end of the war, some of which are Zero 52 models, which degenerated into kamikaze aircraft)
The aircraft is powered by Mitsubishi's Eiji engines. In 1939, it was successfully trial-produced at the Nagoya factory, and in 1940, the new fighters formed two squadrons and went to China to fight. This new fighter was named the "Zero" fighter.
In the first two years of the Pacific War, the Zero outperformed the Various Allied fighters. The fighters of European and American countries were overwhelmed by the Zero strike, and the air battle situation over the Pacific became increasingly unfavorable to the anti-fascist Allies. Japan's industrial base was very weak, and in order to figure out how the Japanese had built such fighters, the Allies captured a Zero fighter in the Aleutian Islands. The secrets of this fighter are then revealed.
In March 1943, Allied forces landed in the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy's F6F Vixen fighter appeared, which traveled at 594 km/h and was equipped with 6 12.7 mm machine guns, which was overall better than the Zero. The f6f was unusually strong, and it would not die if it was hit by a few more bullets by the Japanese. The Americans' aviation strength is too strong, from design to service in only 1 year and 9 months, the Japanese Zero used 3 years. The appearance of the P51 fighter has made the situation worse for the Zero fighter, which has completely lost its prestige.
(The Zero successor model "Fierce Wind", the development is very unsuccessful, and it has not yet entered Japan.
Horikoshi Jiro was also desperate at this time, and he was developing the zero-type follow-up model "Fierce Wind". However, the development progress has been lagging behind, the prototype aircraft was not damaged or destroyed, and Japan surrendered before the new aircraft entered service. During World War II, more than 10,000 Zero fighters were produced. With Japan's defeat, Zero withdrew from the stage along with designer Jiro Horikoshi.
(Reality is not as beautiful as in the anime plot and graphics)
After talking about the Zero fighter, let's talk about the introduction of the designer himself. Born in Gunma Prefecture, Japan in 1903, Jiro Horikoshi graduated from the Faculty of Aeronautics at Tokyo Imperial University in 1927 and studied at Juncker corporation in Germany and Curtis in the United States in 1929. It can be assumed that the American and German aircraft design experience influenced this man-made Zero fighter.
(Chongqing city attacked by Japanese airstrikes)
(Jiro Horikoshi is a bad old man, far from the handsome appearance in the movie.) There are also no beautiful heroines. The nature of war is ugly)
After Japan's defeat in the war, the new constitution stipulated that there could be no army, and the military budget of the Self-Defense Forces could not exceed 1% of GDP. The SDF's aircraft could only be equipped with American products or imitations of them, so Jiro Horikoshi could not have used his talents in the jet age like designers in other countries. He found a position as technical director at Mitsubishi Corporation, was appointed consultant to the Nagoya Aircraft Manufacturing Institute in 1961, and became president of the Japan Aeronautical Society in 1962, before dying in 1982. This is the truth behind the animation "The Wind Rises", war is not as beautiful as art. References: "Horikoshi Jiro and Zero Style" What are your opinions, welcome to leave a message below to discuss! (Please support a variety of original articles and physical books of the Yi Pin Wen team, independent professionals have a kind of material)