Japan to develop its own plane

Tokyo – Japan is expected to announce plans to develop a next-generation passenger jet following a government committee meeting yesterday, a year after the last struggling attempt was scrapped.

The public-private project, which could use hydrogen fuel in a bid to cut emissions, will cost around five trillion yen (about R625 billion), Japanese media reported, citing unnamed sources.

An official announcement was expected later yesterday after a closed-door meeting of politicians, experts and businesspeople to discuss a new aviation industry strategy.

“For the Japanese aircraft industry to achieve sustainable growth, we cannot stay satisfied with our position as a parts supplier,” Kazuchika Iwata, state minister for economy, trade and industry, told the committee.

“In the new business fields of carbon-neutral technologies, including hydrogen, we aim to take a leading position” and partner with global players to develop a narrow-body plane, he said.

The goal is for the plane to be ready by 2035, the Nikkei business daily and other Japanese media reported.

The fresh push to build the nation’s first homemade airliner in more than half a century comes after Mitsubishi Heavy Industries abandoned a much-hyped attempt in February last year.

The troubled project to develop a twin-engine plane for short-to-medium haul flights was ditched 10 years after the jet was due for commercial roll-out, having suffered technical glitches and repeated delivery delays.

China showed off its first domestically produced passenger jet in Singapore last month, aiming to challenge the dominance of Airbus and Boeing with its single-aisle model.

Japan last launched a commercial airliner in 1962 – the YS-11 turboprop that was discontinued about a decade later. –