In the summer 1873 issue of Sportsman Pilot we featured an article on Bill Coffey's W.A.R. Corsair. In it we noted that he was building another scaled down World War II fighter, a Japanese AM2 Model 21 Zero. Bill subsequently finished the Zero and had it on the fly-in circuit last year, but never at a fly-in we were able to attend. We finally caught up with him this past June at Merced and, as you can see by the photo's it was worth the wait. The tiny Zero is realistic on the ground, but even more so in the air where its reduced size is less obvious. As mentioned it the 1983 article, Bill began with aset of W.A.R. P-47 plans, but he says today that during the course of designing and building the Zero, so much was changed that only the basic W.A.R. wood/foam construction method and some systems are identifiable in his airplane as the ideas of others. One difference is its size. The real Zero had a long, thin fuselage compared to a Corsair or a Thunderbolt, so that when Bill scaled his drawings to his satisfaction, the airplane came out a little longer than the W.A.R. half-scale designs. He says the Zero is more like 9/16ths of the size of the real thing.

The greatest benefit he derived from W.A.R., he says, was the experience gained building his Corsair. This allowed him to bring the Zero to the flightline over 100 pounds lighter than the Corsair….even though the same engine and a similar 3-blade propeller were used. This much of a difference, 748 pounds versus the Corsair's 850, is tremendously significant in aircraft so small as these two and has paid off handsomely in the performance department. One of the ways Bill saved weight was in his selection and placement of glass cloth on the airframe's exterior. Rather than using just one weight of fiberglass cloth, he used four -choosing heavier weight material only where it was needed for strength. Green polyurethane foam were used throughout.

Just as he had in the Corsair, Bill used a 100 hp Continental 0-200 to power the Zero. It came out of one of the airplanes totalled out in the hurricane that hit Houston, Texas area a few years ago. He topped it and it has purred like a kitten ever since, he says. The 3-blade propeller was made by Stan Derrick of Stockton, CA. (Who, incidentally, has just recently gone out of the propeller business. All his wood working equipment has been purchased by an outfit that wanted it for other purposes.) A key to making his scaled down version look like a real Zero was the canopy. The greenhouse style, sliding hatch was a real challenge compared to the relatively simple bubble needed for the Corsair. Bill got the job done, however, by making wood plugs and sending them to Gee Bee in Seattle to have a canopy pulled. He then bonded on strips of fiberglass to simulate a greenhouse type frame and painted them to match the rest of the fuselage. The landing gear was another major project. Dimensionally similar to the gear used in several of the W.A.R. designs, it is otherwise Bill's own design. Each leg is a telescoping strut with "a plain old $8.00 die spring" inside to absorb the jolts of take-off and landing. They are retracted by a Cessna 172 electrin flap motor. A Cessna 150 flap motor was used initially, but soon burned out. The 1972 motor has heavier windings and bigger magnets….and sucks the gear up in about 8 seconds. Just like the real Zero. Bill's has little pin indicators that protrude through the top surface of the wing to mechanically show where the gear is at all times. They are flush with the wing's surface when the gear is up and stick out when the gear is down. If you don't see the pins you don't land.….until you have lowered the gear.

For emergency extension, the electric motor is disconnected from the retract mechanism and the gear is lowered with a hand crank. Bill had to use it when the 150 motor burned out, and it worked fine. The wheels and brakes are Clevelands, right off a Cessna 150. The main gear is fully enclosed when retracted. When the wheels come up into the wells, they push against a lever (with a Teflon pad mounted on it for scuff resistance) that closes the inner doors. The doors are spring loadedto the "down" position and, thus, pop out into the airstream as the wheels leave the wells.

The tailwheel is also retractable… pulled up into the tail cone by a cable attached to the main gear. Bill's first tail wheel strut and fork assembly was made of aluminum to reduce weight, but it wore so rapidly that a second one, made of steel, had to be fabricated. It is holding up just fine. Both assemblies were made to look like the forging used on real Zeros. The tailwheel is a free swivilling unit, which means ground steering is by means of differential braking and the rudder. The gear geometry is such that the little bird tracks "like it's on rails", Bill says, so a steerable tailwheel, with its attendant weight and complications, is not really needed. The "drop tank" mounted on the belly is actually a baggage pod. After his trip to Oshkosh in the Corsair a few years ago, Bill decided the Zero would have to have more capacity for those personal items that make living on an airport for a week a little more civilized - you know, like an extra change of underwear and socks. One thing about the "drop tank" puzzles Bill….it makes absolutely no difference in the plane's performance. The tank is easily detachable….and with or without it , the performance numbers are the same.

Interesting detail items on Bill's Zero include the carb air scoop, mounted in the lip of the cowl just like it was in the real thing. Further back is a non-functional oil cooler scoop, necessary to preserve the appearance of the Model 21 Zero. Initially, Bill had a homemade boiler-type oil cooler in the scoop, but it did not function properly, so he reverted to a standard Harrison cooler monted atop the engine. The shape of the cowing is often the thing that makes or breaks the "real" look of a fighter replica, and Bill worked very hard to make his as authentic as possible, considering the fact that it has a flat -4 engine inside instead of a 2-row, 14 cylinder radial. For reasons Bill has never been able to fathom, Zero designer Jiro Horikoshi split the engine cowl's top and bottom halves on the diagonal. Bill did his the same way, and installed straps to simulate those that held the cowling on the real McCoy.

The big prop spinner is fiberglass, laid up on a chunck of foam carved to the proper shape. Backing plates, one forward and one aft of the prop are also glass. They were laid up on forms turned on a lathe by a friend of Bill's. The whole shebang runs true and has suffered no problems from vibration to this point. On Bill's Corsair, his fiberglass fuel tank was built right into the fuselage structure just ahead of the instrument panel. Eventually, it sprang a leak and had to literally be cut out of the airframe. Bill vowed then and there that he would never experience that trauma again….and acted accordingly when he built the Zero. It has a removeable fuel tank - held in with just 4 screws - and permits easy access to the back of the instrument panel, the rudder pedals and brakes, rudder cables, etc. when it is pushed out, "You live and learn," Billsays with satisfaction.

Several items in the cockpit have stirred interest… and even a little controversy. Bill has all the markingson the airplane in Japanese… including the data plate, whick is mounted on the headrest. The FAA inspector initially balked at this, but after Bill pointed out to him that there is nothing in the regulations that says the data plate info has to be in English, he backed off and Bill has heard nothing from him since. Some eyebrows are also lifted by the fact that, apparently, there is no compass in the airplane. When asked about this, Bill chuckles - then flips up the cover on the gunsight to reveal the "missing" instrument. The paint scheme is that of a Zero that participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Bil managed to obtain a frame from some movie film that was shot by the Japanese dring the raid. It shows some Kate torpedo bombers on their run into Pearl from the Japanese carriers, but has a Zero escort riding just off their wing. That aircraft's paint and marking scheme is the model for Bill's Zero. A light gray, overall, and with a black nose, the wings and fuselage are, of course, festooned with the familiar rising suns or "meatballs", as American pilots disparaged them in World War II. Bill says the color of the rising suns surprises most people. Almost everyone assumes they were bright red but, actually, they were a dull, almost rust color. Through a modeling society, Bill obtained paint chips from Japan, from a former Zero crew chief, so he knows his colors and markings are authentic. Even his "N" number, N4217, is the manufacturer's number from a real Zero.

Having had the experience of flying his W.A.R. Corsair, Bill had a baseline upon which to compare the performance and flying qualities of his Zero. The lighter wing loading is the big difference, he says, giving the Zero a much better rate of climb - about 1500 fpm, initially - and more nimble handling. It is also faster than the Corsair. The one negative is the ride in turbulence. The Zero bounces about in chop the Corsair just bored right on through. The Zero stalls gently at 62mph indicated, and has been pushed up to 30 mph in a shallow dive - with no signs of distress. It cruises at 165 mph indicated . Bill comes over the fence at 80 and always wheels it on… and has found crosswinds up to around 20 mph to be manageable. One thing omitted on the Zero was a trim tab. Bill had electrically actuated tabs on the Corsair - but found after setting them that he never used them again. He learned from that…but says he did foul up in not building in a little incidence in the horizontal stabilizer. Last fall, ABC contracted to have Bill fly the Zero to Lancaster, CA for fjilming for the made-for-TV movie, WAR AND REMEMBERANCE, the sequel to WINDS OF WAR. Initially, the plan was to continue the filming in Hawaii…but, alas, ABC found some of the old modifiedT-6's left over from the TORA, TORA, TORA movie and used them instead. Bill was able to get some footage out of the stuff that was filmed at Lancaster and says his little bird looks like a real Zero in it.

When Bill began flying the Zero, he brought his Corsair home for a close look its structure and systems. IT had been flying for 6 years, had been "rode hard and put away wet" and he wanted to see what kind of wear and possible deterioration had resulted. To his pleasant surprise the only wear was just where he had expected it to be - in the tail's aluminum hinge fittings and in the landing gear. These were bushed and shimmed as required and are as good as new again. Bill made a very close inspection of the glue joints, even to the point of climbing back into the tail cone, and was gratified to find everything intact - not a simgle separation anywhere in the airframe. He believes the W.A.R. construction method has proven itself to be sound, if built properly in the first place. Bill retired from his engineering management position with Lockheed a couple of years ago and is making plans to move from the San Francisco Bay area to his native Oregon. He'll take the Corsair and Zero with him, of course, but would be willing to sell the Corsair. I asked about the possibility of another project….and got a big grin from Bill. He says he probably doesn't have the time or money for it, but would love to design and build a scaled down Dornier DO-335, the big push/pull fighter the Germans were testing as World WAR II ended. With a couple of George Morse's V-8's, it "ought to percolate along pretty good", Bill says. THAT would be something to see.