The Mitsubishi MC-1 was a 1920s

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese single-engined

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

airliner An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an ...

designed and built by the

Mitsubishi Aircraft Company Mitsubishi Aircraft CompanyGunston p. 318 (''Mitsubishi Kokuki'') was the new name given by the Mitsubishi Company (''Mitsubishi Shokai''), in 1928, to its subsidiary, Mitsubishi Internal Combustion (''Mitsubishi Nainenki''), to reflect its chang ...

Design and development

In 1927, the Japanese Department of Communications launched a competition to design and build an indigenous passenger transport aircraft. Mitsubishi's design to meet this requirement was based on its

Mitsubishi B1M The Mitsubishi B1M was a Japanese torpedo bomber of the 1920s, also known as the Navy Type 13 Carrier-Borne Attack Aircraft. It was designed and built by Mitsubishi and used in combat against China. The aircraft was used by the air services of ...

torpedo bomber, using the wings of the earlier aircraft combined with a new fuselage. The MC-1 was large three-bay biplane powered by a

Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar The Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar was an aircraft engine developed by Armstrong Siddeley. The Jaguar was a petrol-fuelled air-cooled 14-cylinder two-row radial engine design. The Jaguar III was first used in 1923, followed in 1925 by the Jaguar ...

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...

and it had an open cockpit behind the wings for the pilot and room for four (some sources say eightWolfram Nickel
''Mitsubishi Motors''
page 9, , 2016.) passengers in an enclosed cabin in the forward fuselage. The MC-1 had a fixed

conventional landing gear Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...

but could also be fitted with twin floats. The MC-1 was completed in April 1928, and was evaluated against the other two competitors, the

Aichi AB-1 The Aichi AB-1 was a result of a 1926 government call for a small, Japanese-built, civil transport biplane able to operate from land or water. It won the contest in both roles but did not reach production as airlines moved from biplanes to mono ...

and Nakajima N-36, both of which were also biplanes. No production followed of any of the aircraft, as they were considered obsolete compared with foreign types, and the state-owned airline

Japan Air Transport was the national airline of the Empire of Japan from 1928 to 1938. History Commercial aviation began in Japan with the privately held Japan Air Transport Institute, which pioneered passenger service between Sakai, Osaka and Tokushima on Shikok ...

(''Nihon Koko Yuso KK'') ordered

Fokker Universal The Fokker Universal was the first aircraft built in the United States that was based on the designs of Dutch-born Anthony Fokker, who had designed aircraft for the Germans during World War I. About half of the 44 Universals that were built betwe ...

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

s instead.

Operational history

Although no production of the MC-1 followed, the prototype was used to operate an experimental air service between

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of 2. ...

Specifications (Landplane)

References

Notes

Bibliography