The first powered flight of a J8M prototype occurred on July 7th, 1945. However, after clearing take-off and beginning a climb, the engine cutout was activated due to half-full fuel tanks, disrupting all power to the rocket. Despite recovering from the ensuring stall, the test pilot managed to glide the aircraft to safe levels but landing was complicated by one of the wings clipping a building near the runway. The strike jarred the aircraft and the volatile fuel stores ignited, severely injuring the test pilot and completely destroying the aircraft. Test pilot Toyohiko Inuzuka would die of his injuries the following day.
The accident expectedly forced a delay to all scheduled J8M flights while the engines were being reworked to help counter the fatal flaw. In August of 1945, Mitsubishi managed a redesigned J8M in the "J8M2" and manufacturing capabilities were almost ready for serial production of the aircraft. However, the Empire of Japan was forced into surrender through several unfolding events - the Americans had showcased their atomic bombs to deadly effect on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Allied bombing campaign had severely disrupted local Japanese war-making capacity, Japanese territorial losses in Asia and the Pacific further restricted availability to natural resources and the Japanese Navy was neutered from years of irrecoverable losses at sea - primarily to its carrier fleet at the hands of the United States Navy. Much of what remained were fanatical island defenders cut off from any prospect of hope with no option to surrender honorably.
The Empire of Japan therefore capitulated on August 15th, 1945, officially ending World War 2 as a whole. The surrender would be signed on the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on September 2nd 1945 and the Japanese defense industry would be dismantled for the foreseeable future. With the collapse of the Japanese Empire, the Mitsubishi J8M project also came to an end. All existing examples were confiscated by the Allies for evaluation and ultimate destruction. At war's end, some 60 training airframes had been completed while 7 of the combat-capable versions were available.
Overall, there were five defined variants in the J8M family line. The J8M1 was the initial aircraft designation armed with 2 x 30mm cannons and this was followed by the J8M2 for the IJN with its 1 x 30mm cannon armament. The J8M3 would have featured an elongated fuselage and wider wing span while being powered by a Tokuro-3 series engine of 4,400lbs thrust. Training versions by Yokosuka included the MXY-8 "Akigusa" based on the original J8M production model and the MXY-9 "Shuka", this being powered by a Tsu-11 thermojet engine - the Tsu-11 relying on a 4-cylinder inverted inline engine coupled to a single-stage compressor with fuel-injection system collectively (when ignited) producing thrust output via rather primitive means.
The Japanese end-product was highly similar to the original German Messerschmitt series complete with a short, stout fuselage housing a single-seat cockpit, well swept-back wing assemblies and a single vertical tail fin. Armament would have been 1 or 2 x 30mm cannons. The rocket engine was set within the fuselage and exhausted through a circular port under the vertical tail fin at rear. The volatile combination of T-Stoff and C-Stoff was retained and known to Japanese engineers as "Ko" and "Otsu" respectively. The pilot sat under a glazed canopy that hinged to the right side while his rear view was obscured by the raised fuselage spine. The Mitsubishi design would take off and land in much the same way as the Me 163 - via a jettisonable two-wheeled dolly for take-off and land on a skid located on the belly of the fuselage.
Overall, the rocket-propelled interceptor proved something of a technological dead-end from a tactical perspective - rocket powered vehicles being later used for weaponry, testing flight envelopes, breaking the sound barrier and ultimately reaching space. The "turbojet" engine had officially arrived and signified the new way of things, quickly supplanting the rocket engine as the next generation propulsion system. The Me 163 itself proved only a marginal success for the Germans and its reach over the skies of Japan may have met a similar fate. By mid-1945, the Pacific War was going to be won by the Allies regardless of the J8M's introduction into service - though the little aircraft provided the Empire of Japan with a fighting chance nonetheless.
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