An incredibly rare beauty today for true Japanese aviation fans.
In November 1927, the Aviation Bureau of the Japanese Department of Communications launched a competition to design and build an indigenous passenger transport aircraft. Mitsubishi's design to meet this requirement based the wings on its Navy Type 13 Carrier Attack Aircraft a.k.a. Mitsubishi B1M torpedo bomber, combined with a new fuselage.
The Mitsubishi MC-1 Passenger Transport was completed in April 1928, and was evaluated against the other two competitors, the Aichi AB-1 and Nakajima N-36, both of which were also biplanes. No production followed of any of the aircraft, as biplanes were considered obsolete compared with foreign types, and Japan Air Transport (Nippon Koku Yuso Kabushiki Kaisha, NKYKK ) ordered Fokker Universal monoplanes instead.
The MC-1 with registration J-BAKG, was used experimentally on the scheduled service of the East-West Regular Aviation Association between Tokyo and Osaka, a project established by Asahi Shimbun from June 1928 until April 1929. After that, the MC-1 was flown by NKYKK in its regular service connecting Fukuoka and Ulsan in Korea from June 1929 until May 1930.
Since the video clip is dated 1928, it was certainly shot at Tachikawa airfield where Asahi had a hangar, seen in the background of the video.
The Mitsubishi MC-1 Passenger Transport was completed in April 1928, and was evaluated against the other two competitors, the Aichi AB-1 and Nakajima N-36, both of which were also biplanes. No production followed of any of the aircraft, as biplanes were considered obsolete compared with foreign types, and Japan Air Transport (Nippon Koku Yuso Kabushiki Kaisha, NKYKK ) ordered Fokker Universal monoplanes instead.
The MC-1 with registration J-BAKG, was used experimentally on the scheduled service of the East-West Regular Aviation Association between Tokyo and Osaka, a project established by Asahi Shimbun from June 1928 until April 1929. After that, the MC-1 was flown by NKYKK in its regular service connecting Fukuoka and Ulsan in Korea from June 1929 until May 1930.
Since the video clip is dated 1928, it was certainly shot at Tachikawa airfield where Asahi had a hangar, seen in the background of the video.
The MC-1 was a large three-bay biplane powered by a 385 hp (287 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar radial engine for which Mitsubishi acquired a license. It had an open cockpit behind the wings for the pilot and an additional crew member as well as room for four passengers in an enclosed cabin in the forward fuselage.
The MC-1 had a fixed conventional landing gear but could also be fitted with twin floats.
From around August 1931, the MC-1 was reassigned to sight-seeing flights as a seaplane, as the first aeroplane of Nihonkai Koku Kaisha based on Kinosaki, Yogo Prefecture, on the north coast of Honshu. It continued to fly with this airline until 1938.
A large model of the floatplane version of the aircraft is at Tajima Airport, Hyogo Prefecture.
1 comment:
This is great stuff. Thanks for posting.
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