Claim: Mitsubishi gave the task of designing the new fighter to Joji Hattori, the result was a single-bay biplane of wooden construction and had a watertight fuselage.
Evidence: Mitsubishi gave the task of designing the new fighter to Joji Hattori, who had worked with Smith on the design of the Type 10. The resultant aircraft, the Experimental Taka-type (Falcon) fighter or 1MF9, was a single-bay biplane of wooden construction with fabric covering. It had a watertight fuselage and jettisonable fixed conventional landing gear to meet the Navy's ditching requirements (jettisonable because aircraft with fixed landing gear are very dangerous to land on water, since the drag from the water can easily flip the aircraft over when the wheels touch the surface), and was powered by a Mitsubishi Hi V-12 (licence-built Hispano-Suiza Lb).