Grahame Hutchison
10th April 2013, 11:16 AM
New York Times Article (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/business/global/japan-re-emerges-in-the-aerospace-arena-with-a-new-jet.html?pagewanted=all)
TOKYO — As a small boy, Teruaki Kawai watched wide-eyed as American DC-3s took off and landed at a small airport across an inlet from his home on the Hiroshima coast.
Japan’s golden era of aviation, which culminated with the feared and respected Mitsubishi Zero fighter planes, had ended a decade earlier along with World War II. Banned from making planes by American occupiers after the war, then allowed only to make parts for American military jets, Japan’s aircraft industry was a shadow of its former self.
If all goes well this year, Mr. Kawai, now 65 and president of the Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation, will preside over Japan’s biggest aviation comeback since the war. In late 2013, the company plans the first flight of its Mitsubishi Regional Jet, a sleek, 90-seat commercial plane that is Japan’s bid to break into the industry’s big leagues after almost 70 years.
TOKYO — As a small boy, Teruaki Kawai watched wide-eyed as American DC-3s took off and landed at a small airport across an inlet from his home on the Hiroshima coast.
Japan’s golden era of aviation, which culminated with the feared and respected Mitsubishi Zero fighter planes, had ended a decade earlier along with World War II. Banned from making planes by American occupiers after the war, then allowed only to make parts for American military jets, Japan’s aircraft industry was a shadow of its former self.
If all goes well this year, Mr. Kawai, now 65 and president of the Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation, will preside over Japan’s biggest aviation comeback since the war. In late 2013, the company plans the first flight of its Mitsubishi Regional Jet, a sleek, 90-seat commercial plane that is Japan’s bid to break into the industry’s big leagues after almost 70 years.