Retrospective: Automobiles and aeroplanes: Mitsubishi

Smith's creations included the B1M/2MT torpedo bomber (1923), which used Napier Lion or Hispano-Suiza engines, but by the mid-1930s, Mitsubishi was fitting its own radial units into planes such as the G3M (or Nell, the codename given by the Allied forces), the B5M Mabel and F1M Pete reconnaissance float-plane. Japan was arming itself against the US, and by the time it went to war against China in 1931 Western officials had already noted that the country was turning out durable aircraft that were a match for anything their airforces had to offer. Many of these planes were Mitsubishis; in 1937, a fleet of 38 G3M bombers flew 1,250 miles to China, hit their targets and returned, proving that they had over double the range of any other comparable planes. Mitsubishi also supplied its engines to other Japanese military aircraft manufacturers such as Aichi, Kawanishi, Kawasaki, Rikugun, Tachikawa and Yokosuka.

By the time Japan entered World War II in 1941 it had a number of lightweight, versatile aircraft, including the twin-engined G4M Betty bomber, the Ki-46 Dinah reconnaissance plane and the A6M Type 0 Reisen, aka the Zeke or, as it became universally known, the Zero. The Zero was agile, fast-climbing and easily launched off an aircraft carrier ship. It was used in the attack on Pearl Harbour and on subsequent attacks on US bases in the Philippines, as well as on British bases in Singapore, though it was the Nells and Bettys which took out the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse, contributing to Britain's surrender in the Far East. The Najakima-engined Zero was capable of 350mph and a range of nearly 2,000 miles - like many Japanese fighter planes, it had no heavy armouring, to save weight - and initially it was thoroughly underestimated by the US and Allied forces. Towards the end of the war it had been outclassed, and a large number of the 10,000 or so built were destroyed in kamikaze attacks, but the Zero is nonetheless still considered to be one of the best fighter planes used in the war.

Post-war, a divided Mitsubishi returned to car-building (it had made its first car, the Model A, in 1917); its Fuso division made trucks, buses and commercial vehicles, and the company's various divisions also expanded into power generation, electronics and even banking. Forbidden at first to re-start aeroplane manufacturing, its first self-designed plane after the war was the late 1950s MU-2 turboprop, suitable for civilian airliner and military roles. This remained in production, albeit updated and developed, until 1986; Mitsubishi even opened a plant to make it in San Angelo, Texas. Various versions were supplied to the Japanese airforce as well as to civilian airlines, and a number were used as freighters or cargo planes. The MU-2 series was hugely successful, though it gained a reputation for poor safety after a series of crashes in the 1970s and again in the early 2000s; Mitsubishi claimed that many of these were down to inadequate pilot training, as the plane's weight meant that pilots did not need the licence upgrades normally required to fly such a high-performance plane.

Other post-war Mitsubishi civil planes have included the Diamond II executive jet, sold to Beech in 1985, and it has collaborated on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner project as well as making fuselage panels, wing flaps and wing sections for the Boeing 777, 767 and 747. It has also contributed to the Bombardier Global Express eight-seater executive jet and a series of Bombardier turboprops, such as the CRJ-700, CRJ-900 and Challenger 300. Under the guise of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the company has also been making (besides rockets, missiles and guided weapons) a number of military planes under licence: the Lockheed F2 fighter, the supersonic F1, the McDonnell-Douglas F-15 and the SH-60J, SH-60K and Sikorsky UH-60J helicopters, for clients including the US Navy and the Japanese and US airforces.

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