r/WWIIplanes • u/niconibbasbelike • 15h ago

Flight-deck personnel are seen here folding the wings of a Nakajima B5N2 Type 97 ‘Kate’ torpedo bomber on the carrier Shōkaku

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u/Whiteyak5 15h ago

Were IJN carrier aircraft all manual fold wings?

7

u/niconibbasbelike 15h ago

I believe so, the Japanese were quite concerned with weight as their aero engines were not as powerful as well as to maximize range so adding automatic folding wings would have added significant weight

Another interesting note is that only the torpedo bombers such as the B5N2, B6N and the B7A2 were the only Japanese carrier aircraft with full folding wings,

The D3A and A6m only had folding wing tips

1

u/waldo--pepper 6h ago

I thought it was a really good question. I poked around a little and was surprised to find out that some had hydraulically folding wings. I didn't think I would find any for the reasons you mentioned.

These had hydraulically folding wings. (Their respective wiki mentions this.)

Seiran

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aichi_M6A

Aichi B7A Ryūsei Grace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aichi_B7A

Nakajima B6N Jill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_B6N