Anyone know who the Zero is aften referred to as the Hobgoblin?
I have never heard of that nickname for the Zero. I spent about 1/2 hour on an internet search and could not find anything connecting the two names.
Darwin, O.F. [aln]
I have never seen or heard of this being used for the Zero, but I can figure out why;
“troublesome creature”
“creatures whose sole existence is to play tricks and cause trouble for people. They can be mischievous, frightening, and even dangerous, and they are very difficult to get rid of.”
“group of light fairies”
The only other name I’ve really heard it called is Zeke.
Never heard that nickname for a Zero.
Regards, Rick
Never heard of any names but “zero”, “zeke”, or “hamp”.
And we can’t forget the ever-popular Rei Shiki Kanjo Sentoki Ichi Ichi Gata.
Hmmmmmm…man, I need to lay off of that Tenax !
“Zeke” was the “official” Allied nickname… “Zero” came from it’s Japanese nomenclature which was based on the Japanese calendar, A6M Type 0. The A6M-3 “Hamp”, or “Square-tipped Zeke” was initially assigned the name “Hap” in honor of Lt. General H. H. “Hap” Arnold, who reportedly wasn’t too enthralled about the “honor” and it was quickly changed to “Hamp” by the USAAF staff-pukes… In a related tidbit, the IJA’s Ki-43 “Oscar” was often mistaken as a Zeke in victory claims, and actually scored more kills against the Allies than the Zeke…
I was fortunate enough to get up close and personal with the CAF’s Zeke (including a cockpit checkout) at an airshow in '89, but my pictures were pre-digital age and the second ex-wife pretty much destroyed everything in the way of my photo-albums in a rather messy parting in '92…
[quote]
There were two types of A6M3’s: type 22 and type 32–only one had the squared-off wings.[/quote[/i]
Yes… And the one with Squared-off tips was the “Hamp”…
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Those “Cheesy Texan modifications” are still flying as the CAF Tora Squadron and routinely escort the BT-13 Vals & Kates as they blow up Midland International Airport every fall…
But to answer your question, O yes, indeedy… At the time, the CAF Zeke was an authentic, flying Japanese Zero, originally assigned to the DFW Wing of the CAF and was flown quite regularly… It was engined with an American-built P & W mill, which the Sakae engine was an almost bolt-for-bolt copy of… I believe it’s currently for sale out in California, but no longer airworthy and is on static display. The Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, CA has, as of 2007 anyway, the only currently airworthy Zero in the US, if not the world… Rumor has it that another airworthy Zeke may be joining up soon though…
PoF Zeke-July 07
I’m guessing the Vals and Kates are reproductions as well…
Wow, are there ANY original Japanese WW2 a/c still operational? I doubt it…
Yeah they are, that’s why I called them “BT-13 Vals & Kates”… They were modified from Vultee BT-13s (well, the Vals were)… They Kates are hybrid BT-13/T-6s… 1/1 scale kitbash, as it were…
If by “original” you mean, “100% original, as they rolled out the factory door”, you’d be right…
If by “original” you mean, “restored to airworthy condition and flyable”, you’d be wrong…
Aside from the PoF Zeke at Chino, there’s also a (Ki-61) Tony being restored to flyable condition in Virginia… There’s some major Japanese aircraft restoration projects going on in New Zealand and Australia as well… Speaking of the Kiwis, with your past on the Ostfront, you’d be alarmed to hear that they’re flying a half-dozen or so I-16 Rats down there… They out-number all the remaing Bf-109s now…
I found this little information:
Yeah, even the more common American WW2 birds are not 100% original—I’d hazard a guess and say that restored Japanese a/c are the rarest of any nation…for a number of reasons…
well, the Planes of Fame Zero is something a little different though–it is flying with the plane’s original Sakae 31 engine in it. The only other Zero that I know of that has flown after the 1940s is powered by a P&W radial engine.
Let’s also not forget that Goss Hawk has restored some Ki-43 Oscar airframes too. The first one of these has flown, even though it suffered two different landing gear collapses. The second one was restored with only a partial engine installed, so it cannot fly as is. But they do have at least one more airframe left last I knew.
Well, you have to keep in mind that practically every WW2 airframe was designed from the outset to have a working life of only about 500 hours, some even less… Engines were perhaps a bit more, but overall, they wore out fast. I’ve spent a fair number of hours working on “Gunfighter” (The CAF’s “youngest” P-51D) and it has had so many parts replaced (both from wearing out and from a couple crashes) that it’s about 80% “new”…
Regarding the rarety of WW2Japanese aircraft, I was told by a guy that was stationed there that Kadena Air Base on Okinawa was built over an existing underground fighter factory and that the entrances were simply bulldozed over and sealed up and the runways & such were laid out right over them, sealing the unfinished aircraft, parts, and tooling in forever… I don’t know how true it is, I have never been able to find any info confirming it, but I’ve found nothing to refute the claim either… It would be a helluva treasure trove to open it up if true though…
Yeah, but there aren’t many Sakae parts in it… The P&W parts make up most of it… Interestingly, the Sakae engines Japan built even had a copy of the P&W data plaques on them with the motto, “Dependability and Reliability” in English…