A national airliner

In the mid-1950s Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry wanted a home-built airliner to replace the DC-3s on domestic routes, and a way to revive an aircraft industry flattened by defeat. In 1957 Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Fuji, Shin Meiwa, Showa and Japan Aircraft Industry formed a joint venture, formalised in 1959 as NAMC. The state held 54 per cent. NAMC was essentially a paper company, relying on the staff and factories of its members.

The Zero’s designer and the Olympic torch

Among the designers was Jiro Horikoshi, creator of the wartime Mitsubishi Zero; another was Teruo Tojo, son of the wartime prime minister. Their YS-11, a 60-seat twin turboprop with Rolls-Royce Darts, first flew from Nagoya on 30 August 1962. All Nippon Airways used one to carry the Olympic torch before the 1964 Tokyo Games, and deliveries began on 30 March 1965. Piedmont Airlines in the United States became the biggest foreign customer, with 21.

182 aircraft and a mountain of debt

Commercially it was a failure. Prices were set to undercut rivals rather than cover costs, NAMC had no airline salesmen, and the yen’s rise after 1971 finished any hope of breaking even. Production stopped at 182, the last delivered on 11 May 1973, with debts of about $600 million. NAMC was dissolved on 23 March 1983, yet its airliner outlived it: the Japan Air Self-Defense Force retired its last YS-11 in March 2021, 57 years after the type entered service.

Factories

• Nagoya · Nagoya Airport, Aichi — YS-11 first flight; assembly by member companies

People

• Jiro Horikoshi · designer — Designer of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero
• Teruo Tojo · engineer — Son of Hideki Tojo; later chairman of Mitsubishi Motors

Records and firsts

• YS-11: only post-war Japanese airliner wholly designed and built in Japan to enter service for about 50 years