Hiro Naval Arsenal - The Forgotten Pioneer of Japanese Flying Boats

F.A.Q Section Q: Do you take aircraft requests? A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:) Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others? A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both. Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos? A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :) Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators? A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible. Feel free to leave you questions below - I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will keep my eyes open :)

Inside Kure's Yamato Museum, Hiro is part of Kure, there is a wall of models depicting all the aircraft produced by the factory and the factory history is also shared. If you want to see a depiction of the arsenal, the animated movie In This Corner of the World features it throughout as the protagonist's father in law is an employee. It even accurately depicts some of the arsenal bomb raids and Kure's colorful flak bursts, which are something that made it into B-29 bomber crew logs.

[fully typed out multiparagraph comment responding to the video before it's even been public for 2 minutes]

Could you also cover dutch airplanes from WW2, because the Koolhovens and Fokkers from the dutch airforce were quite advanced and inflicted quite heavy casualties on the germans, but they are largely forgotten

I've loved boats my entire life, add wings...I mean come on, you had me at boat. Great content mate!

Very interesting. Aircraft evolved so quickly between the wars that I'm surprised any designs managed to be produced in numbers.

Anything about IJN flying boats is a must see for me!

Some beautiful designs here. I love flying boats. Thank You, Rex.

I love airplane blueprints. As a kid it just blew my mind that all these different military planes from this book I had just started as drawings. Same with their engines, and the angles of the airframe, etc.... it was all some guy with a pencil and paper, and maybe some simple mathematical knowledge... there is always help from technicians, of course, but at that point you're manufacturing the thing.

I know this has been the "Jet Age" since 1945 but the old prop planes, they're just beautiful works of art. Today's planes are almost without art. Function now rules the air.

Finally flying boats... go on, don't stop.

Looking at the Hiro's , the Kawanishi's did away with lumps n bumps and put in flow to their Designs ..Good one Rex..please do the Shitei Recon..

Resemblance of Pan Am Clippers of that Era. Gotta love them Sea Planes. TY, again for the Educational & Entertaining peeks.

Thank you for shining a light into the corners of aviation history .

It seems that the following led to Japan's best flying boats. Kawanishi design team leader. " We shall build an excellent flying boat. Check out all of Hiro's innovations. We shall adopt none of these. To ensure our success!" Thanks for another great video.

I think it's crazy to think Japan still makes flying boats. To some degree.

Excellent content on Japanese flying boats! The Kawanishi was always a favorite of mine.

Like for the "Holding out for a hero" reference.

Well done Rex!

Wonderful video. Thank you