Armament
The 4 x 30mm cannon armament would have made an imprint on the invading B-29 Superfortress crews for the British, Germans, Soviets and Japanese were quick to find out the importance of cannon armament in their fighter aircraft in respect to bringing down larger aircraft. A concentrated blast from these four Type 5 cannons would have surely caused significant damage to the internal workings of the four-engined, wholly-pressurized and technologically-advanced bombers of the United States Army Air Force.
Performance
Estimated performance specifications placed the J7W1 in the upper registers of fighter performance during the war. Top speed would have been 469 miles per hour while range was a respectable 531 miles. Service ceiling was reported to be in the vicinity of 39,360 feet. As a quick responding interceptor, the J7W1 would have made use of its 2,460 feet-per-minute climb rate. Power was to be supplied from a single Mitsubishi Ha-43 12 series engine delivering some 2,130 horsepower to the 8,019lb frame and powering a unique six-bladed propelled system. When fully-loaded, the J7W1 weighed in at 11,663lbs.
Miscellaneous
As an aside, the Imperial Japanese Navy made use of the letter "J" in their designations while the letter "W" stood for the Watanabe factory. A jet-powered version of the J7W existed as a "paper" airplane but never acted upon. This model would have fallen under the designation of "J7W2 Shinden Kai" and fitted an Ne-130 series axial-flow turbojet providing 1,984lbs of thrust.
Like the Curtiss XP-55 Ascender, one J7W1 prototype was shipped to storage at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. while the second one was known to be scrapped. The Ascender, however, now remains on long-term loan to the Air Zoo of Kalamazoo, Michigan.
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