Nakajima Ki-49 Helen Ideas and Inspiration

[Logan Hartke]

So, I came across this neat series of photos in this article:
Vintage Wings of Canada: Green Cross to Bear









Look at that last image, especially. Those are Hamilton-Standard props on both engines. It's clearly American, right down to the late war hub, Hamilton-Standard stickers, and yellow prop tips. I would love to know the story there. I know many Japanese aircraft were unserviceable at the end of the war, did the Allies give the prop to the Japanese to get the plan flyable? Did the Japanese scavenge it from an Allied aircraft earlier? It's really unusual.

Cheers,

Logan

[taiidantomcat]

  That is interesting! I had never seen these. I had heard of the green crosses before, but thought it was only on Bettys and the props are very one of a kind. Don't have answers but thank you for posting these  :)

[GTX_Admin]

The Ki-49 was reportedly underpowered, so why not try a three engined version:

[Caravellarella]

Dear Boys and Girls, would any have seen photographs of the Nakajima Ki-49s operated post-war by the Armée de l'Air in Indo-China please?

Terry (Caravellarella)

[tahsin]

Possibly an answer was found in the 3 years that passed since, but I believe the propeller was a full case of "reverse-engineering"...

[jcf]

Sumitomo (Navy) and Nippon Gakki (Army) had licenses from Hamilton Standard to manufacture propellers.

Nippon Gakki became Yamaha.

https://global.yamaha-motor.com/about/technology/yamamomo/001/#sec1