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From: Robert
Date: 3/28/2003
Time: 12:46:48 PM
Remote Name: 65.239.126.229
Rumors, especially totally unsubstantiated ones, are the devil's advocate. It's as if you were claiming that President Kennedy was shot because he was actually a Martian, and your argument was that someone you know saw his flying saucer parked behind the White House. It would be very difficult to absolutely disprove this (after all, no books on President Kennedy specifically say that there was no flying saucers parked behind the White House): all I could do is point out that there is no historical record to support the theory. If you argued, "of course not, people have an agenda to hide the truth," there's nothing I could do disprove the argument.
So let me try to explain, from my point of view, why I would that say that a) it is impossible that the Zero was a copy of the Hughes Racer, and b) there is no historical evidence to support the theory.
First let, me deal with the issue of Horikoshi having an agenda, and hiding the “true” origin of the Zero when he wrote his book. Yes, he did have agenda, but that wasn’t it. To quote from his book: "I am extremely pleased to see this English translation of my book and know readers in the Western world can now learn how the Zero was conceived and developed. There have been many stories and rumors concerning the evolution of the Zero; my book is as accurate as my memory will allow, and should settle any controversies."
I believe that he is telling the truth. There is no reason to think that he is not, although you can speculate all you like. Two further notes; Horikoshi does make a few minor errors in his book, all regarding aircraft that he personally had no connection with (i.e. he stated that Zeros engaged Spitfires over Colombo when they actually fought Fulmars). The translators have corrected these errors. If there was any truth in the "copy" rumors, don't you think the translators would have at least brought them up? Secondly, if Horikoshi had an agenda, then so must every aviation historian of the past fifty years, American, British, Japanese, or whatever. For, and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough, no reputable aviation historian today believes that the Zero was anything but an original design. There is no evidence in the historical record to back up your claim. Every aviation historian accepts that the Zero was an original design. If your theory was true, don't you find it interesting that no aviation historian would agree with you?
If you don't believe Horikoshi, here's an American author speaking, Jim Rearden in "Cracking the Zero Mystery":
"Early in WWII, U.S. aviation experts believed that the Zero fighter plane was a copy or a modification of an American or European design, and that the Japanese were incapable of building an airplane with performance superior to U.S. airplanes. The truth is, the Zero was as much a Japanese design as any airplane of the day could be...
...How much did the design of the Zero owe to American or European design? A question of the same ilk today might be, what design features have Japanese automobile engineers borrowed from American and European engineers?
Clearly, there is a pool of worldwide information in all fields from which engineers freely draw. When Horikoshi designed the Zero, he used both American and European aircraft design knowledge, plus his own knowledge and skill.
We were at peace with Japan when the first Zeros were built, and some Zero components were built under license from U/S. manufacturers, such as wheels and instruments from Bendix and propellers under license from Hamilton Standard. The Oerlikon 20mm cannon used in the Zero was built under license from Oerlikon of Switzerland."
There’s nothing strange about this; many airplanes were, and still are, built using technologies from other countries. The leading edge slats of the Messerschmitt 109 were a Handley-Page patent. Many US planes today use British ejector seats and landing gear. It doesn't mean that the design as a whole was a copy.
As I said, you can't prove a negative, and it's hard to prove intent. But here are some factors of why I believe what I believe:
1. There is no historical evidence to support the theory. The charge was made before the US had an intact Zero to examine. It was made primarily because the US found it impossible to believe that the Japanese aviation industry had the capacity to design a fighter superior in many way ways to US designs. The Western powers had virtually no accurate information on Japanese aircraft. If you look at the literature of the time, you will see that they often did not know the correct designation of many aircraft, gave erroneous functions and performance figures, and in some cases described aircraft that did not even exist. Based with what they erroneously believed, they assumed that they must have copied it from a US design. This shows both ignorance and unbelievable arrogance, born of the isolationist policies of the time.
2. The two planes are nothing alike. You can actually see both planes today (which, incidentally, I have.) Both are in the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. The Smithsonian produces a book, "Aircraft of the National Air Space Museum," that contains photos and three-views of the planes in the museum. The aircraft are both low-wing radial aircraft with inwards retracting landing gear. Apart from that, they have nothing in common. The dimensions of the fuselage are completely different, the H-1 being quite thin, while the Zero is much fatter. The Zero has an all-around vision canopy directly above the wing. The H-1's canopy is faired into the fuselage, far back of the cockpit. The vertical tail is of high aspect ratio, the Zero's of a much lower aspect ratio. The wing shape is as different as two planes could be, even allowing for the fact that the H-1 had two different wings fitted during its life. One was of a low aspect ratio, and the other of a medium aspect ratio. Both had considerable sweep on the trailing edge, leading to fairings where the wing meets the fuselage. The Zero's wings were of a much higher aspect ratio, with more of a constant chord, and little sweep on the trailing edge. The Hughes' cowling was bell-shaped, with the larger diameter at the front. The Zero's cowling was larger at the rear, and faired directly into the fuselage.
The planes don't really look anything alike. If the Hughes looks like any WW2 fighter, it's the F4U-1 Corsair, minus the gull wing. And that's a stretch.
3. The planes had entirely different functions. The Hughes was a racer, built for absolute speed. The Zero was designed with maneuverability utmost in mind. They are diametrically opposite functions. If Horikoshi was going to copy anything, why would he choose a plane with no ability to do what he desired his plane to do? It's as if someone were designing a car to win the Indy 500, and copied a dump truck.
4. Horikoshi's previous design was far ahead of any similar US designs. Why would he feel any need to copy anything when he was already ahead of the game? The Mitsubishi A5M, introduced in 1936, was the world's first all-metal monoplane carrier fighter. This was at a time when all of the carrier fighters operated by the US Navy and Britain’s Royal Navy were biplanes with fabric-covered wings.
He had no reason to copy a design from any other country, and if he did, why would he copy a US design? It is far more likely that a Japanese designer wishing to copy a fighter would copy a German or British design. The Germans were Japan's ally, and exchanged technical information (though in a limited way). The British had historically cooperated very closely with the Japanese aviation industry. Most of the license built designs built by the Japanese in the ‘20s and ‘30s were British. The British and Germans were also, at the time, far ahead of the US in fighter design.
5. While the Japanese had previously licensed some foreign aircraft designs, this was completely above board. All were done completely legally and with the cooperation of the original country. There is no record of the Japanese building aircraft that they did not have the rights to. For example, the Japanese built the Bucker Bu 131 trainer under license, the only German plane that they did. They also, legally, built the DC-3 as the Showa L2D, and the Lockheed Model 14 as the Kawasaki Ki-56, recognizing American quality in the area of transports. All of these cases are well-documented.
6. The few examples of aircraft being successfully copied or modified that I'm aware of have had one thing in common: an actual example of the aircraft was on hand, or one of the original designers was involved in the project. There is no example in aviation history of an airplane being successfully copied without access to original information. The Germans tried to copy the Nieuport fighters during WW1, but it was only when they stopped trying to make a direct copy and began just to incorporate the features in the their own Albatros fighters that they were successful. And they had original Nieuports to work from. The Soviets copied the de Havilland D.H.9A as the Polikarpov R.1, and the Boeing B-29 as the Tupolev Tu-4. In both cases, the Soviets had examples of the aircraft involved to work from. The Seversky P-35 was used as the basis for the Reggiane Re 2000, but one of the Reggiane designers had previously worked at Seversky on the P-35. There was only one example of the Hughes H-1 ever made, and it never left the US. (And Horikoshi never visited the US prior to WW2). For most of its life, Howard Hughes kept the R-1 under lock and key in the Hughes factory at Culver City. Hughes was one of the most paranoid, security conscious individuals who ever lived. How, exactly, would someone get the information needed to copy it?
7. The specification issued by the Japanese Navy for the Zero was so stringent that no aircraft could have been adapted to fulfill it. Only an original design could combine the features needed, and even then, only with a brilliant, completely unprecedented design. Nakajima, in fact, refused to even submit a design, because they thought it was impossible to fulfill it. Many of the design features in the Zero had never been previously used in any aircraft design. The metal on the wings that your father noted are an example. Horikoshi made use of extra super duralumin to lighten the aircraft, the first time this metal had been used in an aircraft. The stressed-skin fuselage was of extremely thin gauge while the wings and tail were of only slightly heavier gauge. The Zero was filled with as much innovation as any aircraft design in history. Of course, you must give up something to gain something, and the design decisions that were made that gave it such a great performance in some areas weakened it in others. By reading Horikoshi's book, it is clear that he was treading into uncharted waters, and coming up with unconventional solutions. How could he copy something under these conditions?
My father spent 42 years as an engineer in the aviation industry. He was a primary member of the design team for several of the world's most successful aircraft, from Mach 2 fighters to jumbo jets. While he worked on both airframe and control design, he retired as the head of Pilot Input Controls for Boeing Commercial Aircraft; in other words, he had complete responsibility for the design of all controls used by the pilot on airplanes such as the 747 and 767. He is a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and a past board member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. I don't think I would be presumptuous if I said that he is respected worldwide as an aeronautical engineer. It is he who recommended Horikoshi's book to me, as the best book he's ever read about designing an aircraft. He stated that everything in the book seems reasonable and true to him, and that in his professional opinion, it would have been impossible for Horikoshi to copy an aircraft and obtain the results he did. He has also seen a Zero in person, the example owned by the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino. So you can see why I'd believe him.
What I'd like to see from your side is any evidence to support your theory from sources that I can check - from reputable historians or aviation experts to support your case.