Mitsubishi Ki-73

The Mitsubishi Ki-73, code-named Steve by the Allies, was a single-engine, super high-speed, long-range escort fighter designed by Mitsubishi Aircraft Company for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in the Second World War. It answered a May 1943 specification and was designed by Tomio Kubo, who also designed the Ki-46 and Ki-83, in response to heavy bomber losses to Allied fighters. It was a standard monoplane with a tail-dragger layout and two three-bladed contra-rotating propellers driven by a Mitsubishi Ha-203-II engine, a 24-cylinder liquid-cooled H engine of 2,600 horsepower. Engine problems led Kubo to move to the Ki-83, and the Ki-73 reached only partial prototype development before it was abandoned and cancelled.