Aichi B7A
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The Aichi B7A Ryusei (Japanese: 愛知 B7A 流星, "Shooting Star") was a large and powerful dive bomber and torpedo bomber produced by Aichi Kokuki KK for the Imperial Japanese Navy. It was designed in response to a 1941 requirement issued by the Imperial Japanese Navy for a carrier attack bomber that would replace both the Nakajima B6N Tenzan torpedo plane and the Yokosuka D4Y Suisei dive bomber in IJN service. Given the codename Grace by the Allies, it first flew in 1941, but problems with the delivery of the engines meant that it was not produced in numbers until too late to affect the outcome of the war. There were no aircraft carriers left for it to fly from, and only 114 aircraft were produced.
Although the B7A had a weight carrying capacity apparently resulting in a weapons load no greater than its predecessors, in fact the presence of an internal bomb bay with two high-load-capability attachment points allowed the aircraft to carry two 250 kg bombs, something no other Japanese single engine fighter or attack aircraft could do (other aircraft had only a single heavy-load attachment point, and there was no known example of an external rack to adapt a single attachment point to multiple heavy bombs). Despite its weight and size, it displayed fighter-like handling and performance, besting the Mitsubishi Zeroes in service at the time. Fast and highly manouverable, had it been produced earlier and in greater numbers, it would have proved a considerable adversary to the United States Navy's fighters.
The powerplant was a 1,825 horsepower (1,360 kW) Nakajima NK9C Homare 12 18-cylinder radial engine, and the aircraft featured a 'bent' wing - an inverted gull-wing somewhat reminiscent of the F4U Corsair - to give clearance for the propeller without requiring the use of long main undercarriage legs.
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