Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi

The Nakajima Ki-115 Tsurugi, meaning sabre, was a single-seat aircraft built specifically for kamikaze attacks, designed and produced by the Nakajima Aircraft Company in the last months of the Second World War. The Imperial Japanese Navy called it Toka, or Wisteria Blossom. It was ordered by the Imperial Japanese Army in January 1945 as a cheap, simple machine that semiskilled workers could build from non-strategic materials, with a jettisonable undercarriage and a design that accepted many types of radial engine. The prototype first flew on 5 March 1945 and the type was quickly put into production, but its poor take-off and landing behaviour caused fatal training accidents. The invasion it was meant to counter never came, so it was never used in action, and the two surviving airframes are held in museum collections.