As explained in a 1945 article about the Zero published in Aviation, “Nothing has been spared to keep weight down, neither excessive man-hours to manufacture complex units nor increasing maintenance difficulties for ground crews.” An example is the bracket made of sheet aluminum pierced with large lightening holes and riveted together to support the aileron control tube. Horikoshi’s team designed lightness into the Zero’s airframe by paying close attention to many small details. When Horikoshi and his team began working on the aircraft in October, they already knew that making the fighter as lightweight as possible would benefit both maneuverability and range. Navy leadership set these requirements based on missions against Chinese targets during the Second Sino-Japanese War that began in July of that year. Zero chief designer Jiro Horikoshi assembled a team in 1937 to design a new fighter for the Imperial Japanese Navy with two primary goals in mind: to make the aircraft as maneuverable as possible and to provide it with enough range to escort Japanese bombers all the way to distant targets in China and back. The first aircraft on the deck is a Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter. ![]() ![]() ![]() The second wave of Japanese fighters and bombers prepares to launch against Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
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