Kawasaki Ki-91

The Kawasaki Ki-91 was a Japanese four-engine heavy bomber that never flew. In early 1943, after the Nakajima Ki-68 and Kawanishi Ki-85 were cancelled when the Nakajima G5N failed, the Imperial Japanese Army asked Kawasaki for a long-range bomber of about the size and performance of the American B-29 Superfortress, able to strike the continental United States from Japan. It was to have a larger wingspan and fuselage than the B-29 and a pressurised cabin in production machines, with four Mitsubishi Ha-214 radial engines and twelve 20 mm guns. A wooden mock-up was inspected in April 1944 and building of the first prototype began in June, but a B-29 raid on the factory in Gifu Prefecture in February 1945 halted the programme when the aircraft was about 60 percent complete.