page_title: Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation
section_title: Formation and workshare
hierarchical_section_title: Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation / History / Formation and workshare
caption_attribution_description: YS-11 JA8717(2005年7月15日、鹿児島空港にて) YS-11 JA8717(Taken on July 15, 2005 at Kagoshima Airport).
context_page_description: The Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation, or NAMC, was the manufacturer of Japan's only successful civilian airliner, the YS-11.
  Rather than an individual company in its own right, NACM was actually a consortium of several different manufacturing companies and university professors. It was founded during April 1957 by executives from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Fuji Heavy Industries, Shinmeiwa Manufacturing, Sumitomo, Nihon Kogata Hikoki, Showa Aircraft, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries with the goal of designing and manufacturing a Japanese civilian turboprop airliner to replace the successful but aging Douglas DC-3.
  The resulting aircraft, the YS-11, became the only moderately successful civilian airliner to be produced by Japan during the 20th century and the only airliner designed and produced in Japan for over 50 years until the Mitsubishi Regional Jet performed its maiden flight in 2015. Achieving a production run of 182, the YS-11 was not a commercial success for NAMC; the consortium's ambitions of producing a turbofan-powered successor were unable to be realised. Burdened by debt, the company was disbanded on 23 March 1983.
context_section_description: In response to this political encouragement, during 1957, a joint venture between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Fuji Heavy Industries (better known as the parent company of automobile manufacturer Subaru), Shin Meiwa, Showa Aircraft Industry Company and Japan Aircraft Industry Company was established for the purpose of developing and manufacturing the envisioned airliner. Two years later, this partnership was formalised as the Nihon Aeroplane Manufacturing Company (NAMC). The ownership of NAMC was initially divided between the Japanese government, which held 54% of the shares, while the constituent aircraft manufacturers held an 18% stake and several components/materials suppliers owned 11%; the remaining shares were small stakes belonging to various banks, insurance companies, and stock firms who chose to invest in the programme. However, NAMC was essentially a "paper company", being reliant upon both personnel and infrastructure provided by its constituent manufacturers.
  Each party was given responsibility over the design and manufacture of a different section of the plane; these were assigned as follows:
  NAMC designed a low-winged twin-turboprop-engined monoplane, capable of seating up to 60 passengers, dubbed the YS-11. Amongst the design team was Jiro Horikoshi, who had previously been the designer of the famed wartime Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter. Another prominent engineer on the project was Teruo Tojo, the second son of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who later became chairman of Mitsubishi Motors. The twin-engined YS-11 was projected as delivering similar operational performance to the four-engined British-built Vickers Viscount, while possessing 50% greater capacity than the similarly configured Dutch-built Fokker F27 Friendship. MITI supervised the pricing of the aircraft in order to ensure that it was competitive with the American-built Martin 4-0-4.
  Although the tentative aircraft was mainly designed and manufactured in Japan, the engine selected to power the airliner was the 2,275 kW (3,050 ehp) Rolls-Royce Dart RDa.10/1 powerplant, which was both developed and produced by British-based company Rolls-Royce. Furthermore, according to author Stephen C Mercado, due to the lack of available domestic technology at the time, several of the key aircraft systems, such as cabin pressurization, were copied from foreign sources; such information was gleaned from a combination of Japanese airlines, trading companies and diplomats. Throughout the YS-11's production lifetime, its electronic equipment, avionics, mechanical and fuselage components were supplied by a combination of by Japanese companies and foreign suppliers.
caption: The NAMC YS-11
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