Fukunaga Asao

Birth Place	Iida-mura, Nagakami-gun (Ootsuka-cho, Minami-ku)
Birth	1893
Death	1980

Overview

Fukunaga Asao manufactured the Japan’s first passenger plane.

Biography

1893	He was born in a farm family in Iida-mura, Hamana-gun, on the new year’s day.
1903	The Wright brothers’ first flight. 12 seconds long, 3 m high, 36 m distance.
1904	He graduated from Ōtsuka Elementary School.
1906	He graduated from Nakanomachi High School and obtained a job at Tenryu Lumber Corporation.
1909	He began a lumber manufacturer with his father in Hyogo Prefecture. The company was successful, and he earned a fortune.
1911	Letting his older brother to manage the company, he went to Saitama to make his dream, flying, come true. He became an unpaid assistant of Tokugawa Yoshitsoshi, the first Japanese succeeded with a flight.
1916	As a student of the inaugural class, he enrolled to Nippon Hikō Gakkō (Japan Flight School).
1917	Tenryu I, the plane he rebuilt from a Blériot plane, failed to fly because of the lack of engine power.
1918	He failed on landing and the plane crashed. This event gave hin nickname of tsuiraku ō (literally king of falling).
1918	He flied to his hometown. The newspaper said that 40,000 audiences gathered. The airplane was stored in a cabin at the Tenryu River.
1919	He established a airplane manufacturer, Fukunaga Hikōki Kenkyūjo, and began making planes with his brothers.
1920	Tenryu I was completed.
1921	The head of Iida-mura awarded him.
1921	The company became a kabushikigaisha (joint stock company). It handled design and produce of airplanes, and also flight training. Six students gathered from all aound the nation to study and live at the company.
1922	Tenryu X, the Japan’s first passenger airplane, was developed. It was remarkable that the plane had a passenger cabin and could hold six people. However, they weren't allowed to use it because there wasn’t any law regarding carrying people on airplains.
1923	The flight association of Japan awarded him.
1980	He passed away in August.

Iida Elementary School has a space inside called “Fukunaga Corner” where they presents the model and parts of Tenryu X. This model was built and flied at the Tenryu River by airplane lovers in 1988. A bronz statue of Tenryu X stands at the entrance of the school. The school also promoted a song about his achievement “Ōzora ni Kakeru Yume”(A Dream in Sky), music compsed by Kondō Haruko and lyrics by Koura Tomohisa. Students sing the song in the school event that introduce Fukunaga.

There is also an assosiation of him.

Fukunaga Airplanes

Tenryu II	It was used to practice ground running.
Tenryu III	The airplane he got from a training school and repaired. It was used at his flight training class of his company mentioned above.
Tenryu IV	It was difficult to control so his brother, Shirō who was a trainer, was the only one who use it.
Tenryu V	It was used to practice ground running.
Tenryu VI	The plane developed in 1921. It crash-landed due to the engine malfunction and bad weather when it appeared in a flight competition held in same year November. Nevertheless, it lengthedned the flight record.
Tenryu VII	It was highly appreciated at the disaster of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923.
Tenryu X	Airplane lovers in Hamamatsu built a model of Tenyu X in 1988, and flied it at the Tenryu River.

Personality

He was very bright and active child. When Wright brother flied for first time in the world, he was 10.

The nickname, king of falling, didn’t only come from his occasional plane crashs but also from events associated with them such as him being sued for his plane crashing into a shop's storage and a woman, who lived in the house his plane destroyed, naming her child Hikōo (literally flying man).

Reference

“Tsubasa yo Aozora ni Maiagare – Ōzora heno Kaidan wo Nobotta Fukunaga Asao”(Wing, Fly into the Blue Sky – Fukunaga Asao Who Climbed Stairs to the Sky)

“Manga Nihon-shi Ketsubutsu Retsuden”(Japanese History in Cartoons, Stories of Heroic Figures)

“Hamamatsu Sangyōshi" (the History of Hamamatsu's Industry)

“Sora Kaketa Hitotachi Shizuokaken Minkan Kōkū-shi"(History of Civil Aviation in Shizuoka Prefecture – People who Flied)

Visited

A bronz statue of Tenryu X stands at the entrance of Iida Elementary School.

The Fukunaga Corner in Iida Elementary School.