Throughout World War II, Japan's "Zero" fighter aircraft became an important proposition in the writings of future aviation history experts due to its superior performance.
The fame of the "Zero" fighter is inseparable from its designer Jiro Horikoshi. Around the 1930s, he visited many aviation powers such as Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States to study and study. This person was good at taking the strengths of others and designing aircraft based on Japan's own technical level, thus pioneering the creation and early development of Japan's aviation industry. In 1935, the Mitsubishi Type 96 carrier-based fighter he designed was famous for its maneuverability. The "Zero" was an outstanding fighter that later developed new technical features.
The first prototype flew on March 16, 1939, and was subsequently put into trial production under the test code name "12 Test Ship Battle" and tested at the Yokosuka Air Force. On July 24, 1940, Japan officially produced a total of 64 aircraft in small quantities under the codename "Zero" Type 11. Later, 13 aircraft were sent to the Chinese battlefield for trial use and stationed at Wuhan Hankou Airport. On September 13, 1940, they launched an air battle with the Chinese Air Force's Yi-152 and Yi-16-10 and won. Since then, the aircraft has been derived from various modifications such as 21, 22, 32, 53, and 63. By the end of the war, a total of 10,425 aircraft had been produced, making it the most produced aircraft in Japan at that time.
The "Zero" fighter adopts a novel wing shape design and is also the first fighter in the world to adopt a teardrop-shaped transparent closed canopy and a rectified auxiliary fuel tank. However, in order to reduce the weight as much as possible, many parts on the aircraft were made as thin as possible, with a low margin for damage. Moreover, it did not have a self-sealing fuel tank. Once it was hit, it would cause a fire and the aircraft would disintegrate. In the early days of its emergence, other Allied aircraft models could not compete with it due to its mobility and firepower. It was not until 1943 that the American P-51, F6F, F4U, and P-38 were gradually put into the battlefield, and the "Zero" type was abandoned. arrogance. Later, as Japan was at the end of its rope, the "Kamikaze" suicide squad it established also used the "Zero" as the main model.
