In this video, we talk about the Kawasaki Ki100, a Japanese fighter from late WW2 that was kind of built by accident. We first talk about Japan's military situation in late 1944 early 1945, being constantly bombed by allied forces (mostly America) and with threats of a land invasion looming. We then look at an earlier attempt at making a fighter with an inline liquid cooled engine, something kind of unusual for Japanese fighters. We look at the performance and problems with that design and engine that led to them trying out a radial engine on the frame, with gave them much better results and directly led to the Ki100.

We talk about the proposed role of the Ki100 as a highlevel interceptor and how it initially didn't do that very well, but performed quite well as a lowerlevel fighter. We look at some examples of the Ki100 fighting dominant American aircraft like the F6F Hellcat and P51, and how the Ki100, at minimum, was about on par with them. We end by looking at why the Ki100 wasn't produced in greater numbers and how it stacks up to other Japanese fighter designs.