Aircraft Trivia Quiz

[banghead] [(-D] [:D] [(-D] ART

OK, so the quiz has stalled. Im giving you the answer. The planes were Ki-27/Ki-79 "Nate". The problem obviously was the Ki-79, so heres a short info about it. It was probably the only plane designed in China during the war. It was initiated in 1942 by the firm “Mansyu”, set in Manchuria, occupied by the Japanese. It was a Nate , built under licence by Mansyu, and redesigned as an advanced trainer. It came out in four variants and remained in production until the end of the war. And here`s a pic of the preserved Indonesian Ki-79 /it was one of the first planes to enter service in their Air Force/

Oh and not to forget, the whole bunch of Nates were produced in 1/72 by RS Models /i have the Ki-27a and its a real gem/. So thats it. Do you want another one?

Sure, that was a worthy question, and looking back, you gave a generous hint after my first answer, so we’re the dummies!

Good one.

CONGO 79 Stumper of the stumped !! [bow] [:D] [bow]

I was ignorant of any military combat airplane produced in China during World War Two. I’ve never heard of that airplane, “Ki-79”. I thought “Nate” was a twin engined bomber.

Thanks for the lesson!

Mania Hobbies made a 1/48 scale Nate in the early 70s. Hasegawa bought them out in 1978 and have been releasing their kits ever since. I built a Hasegawa Nate back in high school. It went together like a modern Tamigawa kit and has excellent detail and recessed panel lines. Not an iota of putty was required.

Mania was about 20 years ahead of their time. They produced kits comparable to the ones designed on CAD systems today at a time when the computer workstation had just been conceived of at Xerox PARC.

Mania also produced a number of excellent 1/72 scale kits too.

Good question.

Bill

Thank you guys, artabr especially [bow], this was an easy one for me /i really like the Ki-27, nasty little bird/, so i thought it would be easy for you. Trexx, i suppose youre mistking it with the Nell. Ok, heres the new plane, im supposing it will be a fast one [:-^]. During WW II, there were a lot of crazy ideas for crazy planes, so im asking you for one of those. This plane was build in 1944 and was constructed with parts from other planes, it also featured an interresting undercariage /in some aspects of course/ and was quite heavily armed. The prototype was lost in april 1945. Name that plane. I`m sure that the first to give the answer will get it right. Good luck!

Apart from being lost in April 1945, the Ju. 287 fits the description. First flight August 1944, made from the forward fuselage of a He.177, the tail of a Ju.388, main gear from a Ju.352 and nosewheels taken from two crashed B-24s. Forward-swept wings count as crazy? Two 13mm MGs in a tail turret and a 4 tonne payload counts a s quite a heavy armament, I’d have thought - the B-17G couldn’t carry much more if you wanted to take off from Eastern England and bomb anywhere in Germany east of Cologne.

Only one prototype completed and flown bu the Germans, which was sent back to the Soviet Union when they overran the Junkers factory in april 1945. Maybe that counts as being lost?

Cheers,

Chris.

yes, u r right

No, it`s not the Ju-287. Clue - it was shot down by a Jug on the 01 of April 1945.

Come on, wont someone try to answer this? Ok, a few tips, it was a jet, tested by the Luftwaffe, but it was not German, yhe prototype was shot down by a P-47, the gear was interresting /as far i can remember, there wasnt an operational type with such gear in WW II/, it was quite heavilly and interrestingly armed and it was not a bomber. Go on guys, it was a crazy plane, i`m sure someone has heard of it!

check on www.luft46.com

my guess is the me p.1101

i’m probably wrong

try to give more hints please[:-^]

Only because he is only posting extremely obscure examples that he gets from otherwise generally unknown, if not questionable, sources of dubious accuracy.

Tom T [C):-)]

I dont think that my examples are so obscure /i think the Ki-27 Ki-79 familly is well known, and my questions about bulgarian aircraft were answerd right away/ and im adding pics for confirmation on the tough ones /i have a pic of the craft im asking even though with a poor quality/. But isnt the quiz supposed to teach us new stuff and tease are modelling madness [8-]?

New clue, the plane was designed by an Hungarian engineer and the first flight was on November 6th 1944 at Viener neustadt in Austria. It was shot down by captain R. Tailor near Linz, the plane and the shooting was filmed by the gun camera, and reportedly the pilot of the bird ejected.

Well, this one seems to have everyone stumped. Might I suggest the following guidelines for future questions:

  1. The answer should be verifiable by at least two independent sources.

  2. At least two of these should be available in English. If there are only two independent sources, both should be in English. Also, sources only available in non-Roman alphabets don’t count.

  3. At least one of these should be accessable through the internet.

It seems to me that if you make finding the answer to your question all but impossible, you’ve taken most of the fun (for all participants, taken as a whole) out of the exercise.

Cheers,

Chris.

BTW, it’s Wiener Neustadt, not Viener neustadt, and I’m pretty sure the guy’s name was Taylor, not Tailor.

I won’t condemn Congo for his choice of the Nakajima question. This one, though, is a fish of entirely different fur.

I know of no WWII jets that weren’t German, British or American. The Luftwaffe could not have tested a Meteor, because the RAF didn’t lose any, and they couldn’t have tested a Bell Airacomet or F-80 for similar reasons, besides which, these planes didn’t fit the other criteria.

The rules of this thread, I think, contained a time limit to get the correct answer. That should keep things moving. This question has only been running for 5 days now. I feel the frustration of others, but if it’s a valid question, then thanks for the stimulation.

There was, of course, also a Japanese jet, albeit that it was a more-or-less copy of the Me.262, and an Italian jet of sorts, but these don’t fit the criteria either.

Cheers,

Chris.

and what’s all this about furry fish? Certain parties are keen to know!

Ok, i will give the answer, but i dont have any info in english /in the net i found it in hungarian and i also have some info in russian and bulgarian/. The plane i was asking for is XNI-02 "Kameleon". It was designed by the hungarian ing. Paul Nemesh in 1944. The plane was build from a Mustang body and Stuka wings. The Kameleon was armed with 2 MK-103 30 mm guns, 2 moveable MG-131s put in the place of the Mustangs radiator and 4 WGr-210 rockets. The plane was supposed to have a few different roles: trainer, rece, attack and night fighter. I first read about it in 1994. Here is the link to the hungarian feature http://zsoltmilitary.tar.hu/kameleon.htm

Oh, and the last thing i forgot, Unicraft /Ukrain/ makes a resin conversion for this plane in 1/72.

Hmmm…shot down on April 1st 1945, you say? May I introduce you to the Vernal Lantern Fish,

http://swanageview.blogspot.com/2007/04/vernal-lantern-fish.html

which spawn only once a year, also on April 1st? [8-]

Did it not strike you as strange that the sources you relied on had detailed information about the aircraft’s weapons, but nothing about the power plants used? That it didn’t strike you as unlikely that either BMW or Jumo supplied jet engines (cutting edge technology in the early - mid 1940s, remember) to a sketchily-documented Hungarian-designed turbojet-powered attack aircraft project? Or that a country under German control in the early - mid 1940s undertook a secret, independent jet engine programme, somehow getting hold of the strategically important materials and components, without any records being discovered by either the Brits, Americans or the Soviets?

Oh, and can I draw your attention to the comment on Unicraft’s website, on the page describing their model of this plane:

http://www.geocities.com/unicraftmodels/on/kameleon/kameleon.htm

Please note: this aircraft is believed to be fictional only

[:-^][8-][banghead]

Hmmm…

Cheers,

Chris.

It must have had an ejection seat, too. You couldn’t be expected to bale out and not get sucked into one of the engines, or else hit your head on the tail. A downward-firing seat like the early F-104s, maybe.