IJA Ki-61-II KAI (Type 3 Hien/Tony)

Ki-61 was a Japanese World War II fighter aircraft build for the Imperial Japanese Army under specification Type 3 Fighter. Due to a false assumption by the Allied pilots that the airplane was in fact a Me Bf 109 or Italian Macchi C202 Folgore due to that, it was given a reporting name ‘Tony’. Ki-61 was the only mass produced Japanese WWII fighter to be equipped with a liquid-cooled inline V engine. Its first flight took place in December of 1941 and a total of over 3000 airplane’s of this type was built during World War II.

Ki-61-II was designed as a high-altitude interceptor anticipating the need to confront heavy bombers threatening Japanese main islands. It was first flown in December 1943, the prototype was equipped with the uprated Ha-140 engine and 10% greater wingspan over version I. For the production version wing span was revered to the one used in version I type D/Tei, the fighter was then called KAI which stands for ‘improved’.