Kawasaki Aerospace Systems Company

History

Kawasaki Aircraft Industries, one of Japan's first aircraft companies, was founded in 1918 as a subsidiary of Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Kobe. Before the end of the Second World War, it primarily supplied aircraft and engines to the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force. In the early 1930s, the company built Salmson biplanes and engines under license and developed its own designs, aided by German engineer Dr. Richard Vogt, who worked there from 1923 to 1933 and trained future chief designer Takeo Doi. Kawasaki obtained a license from Dornier for all-metal flying boats, producing the Kawasaki-Dornier Wal in 1924, but later specialized in land planes. Notable pre-war designs included the Type 88 reconnaissance biplane, the Ki-10 biplane fighter, the Ki-45 Toryu twin-engine fighter, the Ki-48 light bomber, and the Ki-61 Hien fighter. After the occupation of Japan began in 1945, the aviation industry was dismantled and factories converted; the ban on aircraft development was lifted in March 1954. In 1969, Kawasaki Kokuki Kogyo KK was restructured as a formal subsidiary of KHI. Postwar, the company produced licensed aircraft such as the P-2J, KH-4, KV-107, and CH-47J/JA for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces, alongside indigenous designs including the C-1 and C-2 transports, T-4 trainer, OH-1 helicopter, and P-1 maritime patrol aircraft.