As flight-test aircraft of Japan’s first jet airliner take shape at Nagoya, the country’s technology ministry is laying out a plan for a second, part of a goal to raise the national industry to the importance of Japanese automobile manufacturing.
The second aircraft would not appear until around 2040, about 23 years after the Mitsubishi Aircraft MRJ regional jet is due to enter service, but it would incorporate an abundance of advanced Japanese technology and even use a Japanese engine.
The relatively small size of the Japanese aeronautics sector has long seemed anomalous, especially since the country has so many industries that have proven themselves in high technology, precision fabrication, outstanding product reliability and low cost. But instead of building Japanese aircraft, the sector builds mainly high-quality parts for foreign aircraft, especially Boeing airliners.
Aerospace accounts for 1.4% of the economies of the U.S. and European countries but only 0.29% of Japan’s, says the ministry, whose full name is Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Whereas Japanese companies satisfy 23% of the world’s automobile demand, the country accounts for only 4% of the global aerospace industry. The ministry wants to raise that to 20% within 20 years. Since it expects global aircraft production to double in that time, the target implies growth by a factor of 10 over the same period, or 12% a year.
By 2040 Japan should achieve significant leads over other countries in safety, noise, emissions, and economy, which the ministry says are necessary for the country to develop its own commercial aircraft or to initiate international developments.
As a first step, it calls for development of a range of technologies it classifies as “relatively advanced” by 2020: turbulence detection by laser radar, lighter structures, a light, highly efficient composite engine fan, an improved low-pressure turbine, drag reductions and quieter flaps, slats and landing gear. Low aerodynamic noise on takeoff and landing is already a key feature of the MRJ, but Japanese engineers evidently have more ideas, because the ministry proposes flight-tests by around the end of the decade.
Following close behind would be “high-impact” technologies for development by 2025, including a “better” composite wing and a quiet engine with a compact core. The engine program would include a high-pressure turbine that should be tested on an MRJ around 2025. Japan is weak in high-pressure turbine technology, the ministry says, although many countries with aspirations in aircraft propulsion suffer from the same problem.
Before the ministry issued its report on Aug. 19, the Yomiuri newspaper said the government would back development by 2030 of an airliner with fewer than 230 seats, apparently something like the Boeing 757. The Nikkei newspaper reported on Aug. 27 that the ministry was considering either an aircraft of that size or another as big as the MRJ. But Japan has no concrete plan to develop another aircraft, says Shinji Suzuki, a Tokyo University professor closely involved in policy making.
Japan’s success in other manufacturing processes, especially automotives, shows the country could play a larger role in global aerospace, says Suzuki. “Japan has a special potential to reduce production costs, such as [with the] Toyota Production System, Kaizen, and robot manufacturing systems. Those have been developed in the automobile industry and can be applied for the aircraft industry.”
The automobile industry offers a precedent for the rapid pace of production increases called for by the -ministry: Japan built 1 million vehicles in 1963 and 10 million in 1980. But the U.S. and European car makers of the 1960s and 1970s were probably a good deal more vulnerable to smart new competition than are Airbus and Boeing.
The supply of engineers is not a great challenge, says Suzuki. “Management skill and business experience will be more important to developing a larger commercial aircraft,” he says. “Japan is trying to acquire those skills through the MRJ business.”
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the chief shareholder of Mitsubishi Aircraft and manufacturer of the MRJ, has fitted the Pratt & Whitney PW1200 engines to the first flight-test MRJ. The first flight is due in the second quarter of 2015.
Japan Airlines (JAL) will be the fifth customer for the type, the carrier and Mitsubishi Aircraft announced on
Aug. 28. In July, U.S.-based Eastern Air Lines Group, which has not yet begun flying, signed a memorandum of understanding to order 20 MRJs. If that deal and JAL’s are confirmed, the program will have a backlog of 205 aircraft on order.
Aug. 28. In July, U.S.-based Eastern Air Lines Group, which has not yet begun flying, signed a memorandum of understanding to order 20 MRJs. If that deal and JAL’s are confirmed, the program will have a backlog of 205 aircraft on order.
The timing of deliveries to JAL was not disclosed. Mitsubishi Aircraft cannot have many early delivery positions available, because of slippage in airworthiness certification to 2017 from the originally planned late 2013.
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