Tokorozawa Aviation Museum

The last blog post for today (I swear... really, I do) is about our trip to Tokorozawa Aviation Museum. This site is famous for being the "birthplace of Japanese aviation", sorta the Pensacola equivalent. If you know my dad, then you know that coming here was his idea, but it turned out to be pretty interesting!

Everyone knows that in 1903, the Wright Brothers achieved the world's first powered flight, launching the rapid growth of aviation research/technology. Naturally Japan wanted in on that, too, so in 1909, the Provisional Military Balloon Research Association (PMBRA) was established to perform aviation research. The first order of the day? Find a site for an airport. They decided to choose Tokorozawa, hence the location of the museum.

I bet you don't know who performed the first successful flight at an airfield in Japan, do you? Well it was Yoshitoshi Tokugawa, done on April 1, 1911, with a Henri Farman aircraft.

We also got really lucky because there was a *special* exhibit... the only authentic and flyable Japanese Zero left - and also the only one with its original engine! If you're like me and have no clue what the Mitsubishi A6M Zero even is, read on. It was a plane used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII, and quickly garnered a reputation as one of the top dogfighters (kill ratio of 12 to 1) until mid-1943. As the war winded down, the Zero was used in kamikaze operations.

They had a little exhibit where you could look through the cockpit... naturally, the plane was poised to destroy an innocent American pilot. So tricky... 

If you've got some time to kill or can't fall asleep, you watch this instructional video for pilots during WWII on how to recognize the Zero: