The similarity between Gloster's F.5 34 'Unnamed Fighter' (above) and the later Mitsubishi Zero is self evident. But pondering what aircraft designs, if any, might have influenced Jiro Horikoshi's sparkling fighter design is something of a speculative clich, if not a conspiracy theory per se, and one which is unlikely to be unravelled now. There has always been an element of chauvinism in the idea that it was so good that it must have been copied from a Western design. In November 1985 the magazine Airpower published a rather sensationalised sp ... More >>