Dating to the early 1940s, this Japanese newsreel promotes air travel within the Japanese empire. The aircraft shown is a Mitsubishi Ki-57 II transport aircraft aka “Topsy”. The Ki-57 was developed from the Ki-21 twin engine bomber bomber and had its maiden flight in August, 1940. It entered service in 1942 and was operated by Imperial Japanese Airways. The film refers to the plane as the MC-20-I, which was an alternate designation for the civil variant of the plane. It carried a crew of four and eleven passengers.
The film, with extremely somber music, shows the plane being boarded at an unnamed airport, and taking off on a flight. At 1:26, a stewardess assists passengers in the cramped fuselage. The aircraft shown at 1:26 has J-BGO5 on the fuselage. At 1:35, an “editorial office in the air” is shown — an aircraft belonging to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. At 1:57, an editor inspects a photo in the airplane’s window, and then a radio message is sent by the radioman as the plane flies overland. At 2:14, a boy looks out of the wing of the plane as it flies over a river. At 6:02, a box lunch is served by the stewardess consisting of a sandwich and fruit. At 6:09, Mt. Fuji is visible out the window of the airplane, and there are shots of the aircraft flying across the mountainside.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
