The Planes of Fame Zero and the only original flyable Mitsubishi A6M in the world

The Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California is home to the only original, flyable Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero in the world. Serial number 61-120, this late-war Model 52 was captured on Saipan in June 1944, shipped to the United States for evaluation, and eventually saved from the scrapyard by museum founder Ed Maloney. It flies each spring at the museum’s annual airshow, typically held in May.

How Did This Zero Survive the War?

In June 1944, U.S. Marines overran a Japanese airfield on Saipan during the Mariana Islands campaign. Among the aircraft left behind was a largely intact A6M5 Model 52, a late-war variant with significant improvements over earlier Zeros. The Japanese forces hadn’t had time to destroy it.

This wasn’t the first captured Zero. The famous Akutan Zero, which crash-landed in the Aleutian Islands in 1942, had already given American engineers critical insight into the aircraft’s design. But the Saipan Zero was a more advanced machine. The Model 52 featured thicker wing skins for higher dive speeds, improved exhaust stacks that added thrust, and belt-fed 20mm cannons replacing the earlier drum-fed versions that held only 60 rounds. Japan was trying to keep the Zero competitive against the F6F Hellcat, F4U Corsair, and P-38 Lightning.

The aircraft was crated and shipped to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, where Navy test pilots flew it against frontline American fighters. Their evaluations confirmed what combat pilots already knew: the Zero remained exceptional at low-speed maneuvering, with light controls and outstanding visibility from its greenhouse canopy. But its weaknesses were severe — no pilot armor, no self-sealing fuel tanks, and ailerons that became nearly immovable above 250 knots. The tactical lesson was simple: keep your speed up, and the Zero couldn’t follow.

Who Was Ed Maloney and How Did He Save the Zero?

After the war, captured enemy aircraft were scattered across the country with no clear plan for preservation. Many were scrapped, dumped in the ocean, or left to rot. A staggering number of irreplaceable machines simply disappeared.

Ed Maloney was a young man in Southern California in the late 1950s who watched this destruction happening in real time. Warbirds were being melted for scrap aluminum at five cents a pound. He wasn’t wealthy. He was simply someone who recognized that if nobody acted, the physical evidence of aviation history would vanish.

Maloney began collecting aircraft and founded what he called The Air Museum, later renamed the Planes of Fame Air Museum. The A6M5 Zero became one of his crown jewels. The exact chain of custody from Navy testing to Maloney’s possession involves informal transactions typical of the era — surplus fighters could be had for little more than the cost of hauling them away. Some of the most valuable warbirds flying today were saved by individuals with flatbed trucks and determination.

Why Does the Zero Fly With an American Engine?

Restoring a Japanese warplane in the United States presented enormous challenges. Every component was manufactured to Japanese metric standards. Maintenance manuals and engineering drawings, when they existed at all, were written in Japanese. The original Nakajima Sakae 14-cylinder radial engine was a sophisticated powerplant, but finding spare parts or qualified mechanics for a Sakae in postwar America was effectively impossible.

The restoration team made a pragmatic decision: they replaced the Sakae with a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp. The R-1830 is roughly the same diameter, weight, and horsepower as the Sakae. It mounts to the airframe with an adapter plate, and critically, parts, maintenance expertise, and overhaul shops are readily available in the United States.

This remains a debated choice among purists. The Sakae engine had a distinctive higher-pitched note quite different from American radials. But the alternative was an airplane permanently grounded. Maloney chose flight, reasoning that an airplane in the air is a living piece of history in a way that a static display can never be.

The airframe itself is the real artifact. The fuselage, wings, control surfaces, landing gear, and canopy are all original Mitsubishi construction, assembled by Japanese factory workers in 1943 or early 1944. The skin panels are remarkably thin — flexible enough to bend by hand in places. That extreme light construction gave the Zero its legendary range and maneuverability, and also explains why .50-caliber fire could tear one apart.

What Makes the Zero So Different to See in Person?

The Zero is smaller than most people expect. The wingspan is approximately 36 feet, and it weighs less than 4,000 pounds empty — lighter than a loaded Piper Cherokee Six. Photographs from wartime tend to make it look larger and more imposing than it actually is.

In flight, the Zero moves with a distinctive grace. It can pull into turns that look impossibly tight for a fixed-wing aircraft. Even with the Pratt & Whitney engine, the sound carries a character of its own, a deep radial rumble that echoes off the San Gabriel Mountains behind Chino.

How Rare Is a Surviving Zero?

More than 10,500 Zeros were built during the war. Today, surviving airframes number in the low dozens. Most are static displays — wrecks recovered from Pacific jungles and lagoons, often assembled as composites with parts from multiple crash sites and reproduction components filling the gaps. Those restorations serve an important preservation role, but the Planes of Fame aircraft is distinct because it is substantially one airplane: one serial number, one continuous history.

Can the Zero Keep Flying?

Every year the Zero flies, a quiet conversation takes place about whether it should be the last time. The airframe is over 80 years old. Original parts cannot be replaced. A gear collapse or hard landing could permanently end its flying career, and there is no backup airframe waiting in reserve.

Some argue it should be grounded and placed behind glass. The counterargument is the one Ed Maloney lived by: people experience a flying machine differently than a static exhibit. The sound, the movement, the physical presence of an aircraft in flight creates understanding that a museum display case cannot replicate.

The maintenance knowledge required to keep this airplane airworthy lives within a small and shrinking group of mechanics and volunteers at Chino. They are training younger people, but much of what they know is experiential — specific cable tensions not recorded in any surviving manual, inspection patterns developed from a stress crack discovered in 1982 that was repaired but remains a permanent part of the airplane’s maintenance memory.

Ed Maloney died in 2016 at age 93, having seen his collection grow into one of the most respected aviation museums in the world and his Zero fly hundreds of times.

Key Takeaways

The Planes of Fame A6M5 Zero (serial 61-120) is the world’s only original flyable Mitsubishi Zero, captured on Saipan in 1944
The original Nakajima Sakae engine was replaced with a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 to enable ongoing flight operations, while the airframe remains original Mitsubishi construction
Founder Ed Maloney saved the aircraft from the postwar scrapping wave that destroyed thousands of irreplaceable warbirds
Of more than 10,500 Zeros built, only a handful of airframes survive in any condition, and this is the sole one that flies
The aircraft flies annually at the Planes of Fame Airshow in Chino, California, typically in May, but its continued airworthiness is not guaranteed indefinitely