MRJ/SpaceJet | A Japanese attempt

The Mitsubishi Regional Jet (also known as the SpaceJet) is a regional jet airliner developed by Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation (a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) in the 2010s. The project was announced in 2007 and was extremely ambitious, claiming both leadership in the regional transportation niche and placing Japan on the list of countries that are large manufacturers of aircraft.
The initial plan assumed the creation of a family of 2 basic airliners: the smaller MRJ70 and the larger MRJ90 with a capacity of 70 and 90 seats, respectively. The aircraft were equipped with the latest technology, had to have a high proportion of composites in the structure and the latest engines.
However, the work on the program constantly faced many technical and strategic difficulties, which led to stretching of implementation and constant delays in deliveries. Initially, the aircraft was supposed to start deliveries in 2013, but, in reality, its first flight was carried out only in 2015, and delivery dates, over time, shifted to the mid-2020s. In the face of such great difficulties and delays, as well as changes in market conditions and the emergence of new airliners from competitors, the MRJ, then renamed SpaceJet, lost the interest of customers and, soon, the entire project was closed.
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00:00 - A Japanese plane
00:46 - Ambitions
02:15 - The aircraft project
04:26 - The aircraft description
07:31 - Forget about composites
08:54 - Study on the spot
10:14 - Presentation and testing
11:30 - SpaceJet
12:44 - A Wild West
13:44 - Problems and errors

[@Incidental104]

Mitsubishi: "Hey Embraer can I use your homework?" Embraer: "Sure but change it up a little" Mitsubishi: "Do I have to?"

[@SuperDave_BR549]

it is always a superb way to start the morning watching a freshly minted aerial masterpiece by the Sky-meister. thank you!!

[@AC_702]

I remember seeing the MRJ/Spacejet when I flew into Portland airport. It is a good looking aircraft, but it just felt like it had a cloud of "not going to fly on one soon" feel about it.

[@callenclarke371]

Goodness! A dramatic tale. I had no idea what the history of this plane was. It's fascinating. Like so many designs prior to it, general technological excellence and even technical innovation do not guarantee success in the red-water Airline industry. A fascinating cautionary tale.

[@databong]

Thanks for all the well edited Godzilla clips :)

[@Ficon]

Excellent story telling, thank you for sharing!

[@justinskidmore5780]

I almost thought you would talk about MHIRJ buying the CRJ program from Bombardier

[@LambertxMc]

Sad. Such a beautiful jet.

[@dodoubleg2356]

Another great vid. I especially like how you try & stay unbiased, & just report the content.

[@VoreAxalon]

I adore this kinda insight into aviation. I love this channel!

[@Legend410c]

The PW90 joke, a MOGEURA clip to show off Japanese ability... this one's a work of art.

[@TheTompinai]

Beautiful!

[@gusmanovr]

Great channel. Always a pleasure

[@Iskalawagz24]

It was a beautiful aircraft. It deeply saddened me that the program was scrapped. I believe then it was the teue successor to the YS-11 that is very familiar plane here.

[@tommytomas-fr3sh]

the problem with Japanese manufacturing is that they love the idea of a committee, no one wants to be calling the shot, so it has to be a committee decision.

[@rspectx]

I remember seeing it here at dfw so many years ago. Would have been lovely to see fly

[@jeffreydeeds9225]

I wish it could have worked out. I respect the fact that they gave it a go. It's a very hyper competitive aviation world and gaining a foothold is no small feat. Better luck going forward. I like seeing more diversity of airliners at airports.

[@4evertrue830]

Yeah, they gave it a go alright. A go at wasting tax payers money.

[@paulsz6194]

Perhaps the could market it as a Business Jet?

[@Persian-Immortal]

now thats a beauty!

[@blackmamba3427]

Beautiful jet❤

[@Darryl6636]

What a beauty

[@I-am-awayTOM]

Competition... is great for the consumers but a bitch for the manufacturers.

[@GSteel-rh9iu]

Over the time span certification requirements changed; it turned out the electrical wiring of the first four prototype aircraft had been done differently and redoing electrical wiring would have added more cost and a few years more. Amazing.

[@leisamaggard113]

its a shame! such a beautiful aircraft!

[@arthurp-er1yz]

I'm glad we're Allies with Japan now. I love the cultural back bone. Notice, :"they msnufactured our designs under licence". It's what an honorable person/ nation, would do. I look forward to Japans tech input, for our military.

[@mrrolandlawrence]

indeed the embraer Ejet E2 family pretty much have this plane covered. As its pretty similar, japan could licence build some for their domestic market.

[@arthurmuller671]

Well done with no lack of sufficient humor

[@najmicreativetv9491]

quite sad that it ended up scrapped, and not a single prototype was preserved

[@bhumiriady]

Great video on the Mitsubishi SpaceJet, Sky! I have to admit, this is without doubt, one big "what could have been" in the regional jet market. Had it entered service, it could have given the Airbus A220 and Embraer E-Jet E2 a run for their money.

[@DaveSCameron]

Pyarr coppy of #TSR-2

[@SkyshipsEng]

I think that the A220 is not exactly a competitor to it, it is noticeably larger, but the E-jet, yes, maybe

[@bhumiriady]

@@SkyshipsEng Thank you for the quick reply and explanation, Sky!^^

[@oco8783]

​@@DaveSCameron?

[@4evertrue830]

The problem is, the tendency for all aircraft manufacturers to focus on the american market. If the americans don't buy, they will not build. Why? Is the world avaition market not bigger than the US avaition market?

[@CinemaDemocratica]

I love this channel and I was typically highly entertained -- but there's one thing about the cold open that confuses me now that I've seen the whole thing: We were to understand that the failure of the MRJ hinged on one improbably insignificant misstep, but then the missteps documented in the body of the video seemed much bigger. Which one was the supposedly small error that ultimately brought the project down, the composites, the union deal in the US, the pandemic?

[@maestromecanico597]

That is too bad. But now they have experience in new technologies. Something should come from that.

[@stalag14]

I'd buy one

[@USNveteran]

Personally I always liked the look of it to me it seemed like a little 757. Then again the YS was a good aircraft in it's time. I think Mitsubishi will probably be able to learn from this and come up with an updated version of the MRJ. FLY NAVY!!!

[@awuma]

Mitsubishi wants to get out of the civilian aircraft market.

[@elcheapo5302]

Nice airplane, 20 years too late.

[@luchito1968oo]

La competencia no deja surgir un nuevo competidor!!! no les conviene.

[@awuma]

Mitsubishi bought the CRJ program from Bombardier in 2020. A week ago or so I flew in an Air Canada Jazz CRJ-900 already renamed as the Mistubishi 900. It was quite nice, with modern-sized overhead luggage bins. However, the future of Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation is uncertain, with MHI planning to liquidate it.

[@johniii8147]

It didn't really make sense buying the CRJ program. It was already dead itself and no longer produced and operating aircraft are being phased out pretty quickly.

[@mandonov21]

@@johniii8147 They bought the CRJ so that they could have manufacturing, support, and supply bases in North America, which would have helped the SpaceJet to enter the market there.

[@johniii8147]

@@mandonov21 That didn't prove a wise move as the entire program didn't. The plane didn't meet scope clauses anyway so it wasn't really going to a factor in NA

[@sosochio4374]

You should be worried if Mitsubishi took over CRJ because Mistbushi has a bad record of falsifying its product safety records. The products ranged from steel, electronics, rolling stocks, cars, and maybe CRJ in the future.

[@johniii8147]

@@sosochio4374 The CRJ isn't being made. Program shut down. They bought the program for the support of exiting the existing service infastuce for the CRJ.

[@angelarch5352]

aww, that was a cool looking plane. I hope they can make another plane in the future using that knowledge the gained.

[@johniii8147]

If they were smart, they learned their lesson and won't go there again. It's entirely different being a supplier vs handing the design and program management of new plane start to finish.

[@28ebdh3udnav]

I think its the right plane at the wrong time. Just like the Tu 204

[@leonelson8834]

Instead trying in Japan they should have come to India where they can get labor cost at a cheaper rate. Just get main Japanese designers and some engineers who play key roles

[@ghoziazmyrakhman9479]

Please do Fokker 27/28/100 next

[@jessebrook1688]

Maybe Mitsubishi's purchase of Bombardier's CRJ plans and plane maintenance can be used to their advantage if they try again.

[@ArjunSingh-fv4cb]

In my humble understanding of the tech-economic genre, a particular vantage may claim that any new category of service technology, especially in the aviation sector, derives a course of market predictability by applying a concert of three driving vectors, one is the industry's own aspiration to create sustainable proliferations at various price levels of its deliverances; second, the growth and expectation buildups of a specified economic group that they tag as their potential patrons; and the third, the organic industrial environment and the changes and reforms and texturing that emerges via populist socio economic factors, which can be scaled and more or less mitigated for if the first two vectors are precisely mapped and their formative organicity remains sovereign. So, from this humble perspective, I consider that the patron group which was to create the air-traveler genre for the mentioned airliner and the other airliners of its class, was in a migratory zone, and thus that particular aviation class perhaps couldn't invent a populist market concept or a self appreciating lifestyle trend to bracket this patron group's commutation style or requirements, and thus they organically remained gravitated towards institutional private jets or bigger airliners operated by established operators, more numerically and service logic capacitated to serve the existing large format aviation infrastructure.

[@4evertrue830]

Whaaattttt? Simple english pls bro. 😂😅😊

[@awuma]

@@4evertrue830 ChatGPT?

[@truth-uncensored2426]

AI bot IoI

[@mikeletaurus4728]

Another excellent upload. I would appreciate it if you were to recount dimensions and distances in feet and miles (not just meters and kilometers), weights in pounds or tons (not just kilograms), and pounds of thrust in addition to kilonewtons.

[@ronjon7942]

SpaceJet? That’s what Sales came up with? I guess they managed to book hundreds of orders, but, SpaceJet? 😊. Was that as in ‘outer space’ or ‘a lot of available passenger space?’ Such a beautiful design and aircraft, though. It’s too bad Japan didn’t make it to market, because I bet it eventually would have been a world class RJ, and a huge boost for Japan’s indigenous aircraft industry. The experience, especially in the realm of composite technologies, could have been a crucial asset for Japan’s 5th and 6th gen combat aircraft plans. It’s too bad Mitsubishi couldn’t transfer their T-2 and F-1 military and the MU-2 general aviation aircraft successes and experience to the SpaceJet. But perhaps the technology gap between those successes and the MRJ, along w the span of time, were just too great and long to transfer - heck, the SpaceJet design team probably weren’t even born yet at the heyday of the MU-2, T-2, and F-1.

[@jacobzimmermann59]

There are a few things I don't understand here. How come they lacked competence in the area of composites? Isn't the 787's composite fuselage manufactured by the Japanese? Moreover, it seems to defy logic that they estimated the cost of the program to be ~ $1.5B. How could they expect to develop and build a whole new aircraft with so little investment, when the A330 Neo - a simple modernisation of an already existing aircraft - cost more than $4B?

[@user-qu6qg7sk4v]

IIRC it wasn't a whole new aircraft but a development of the CRJ they had aquired

[@4evertrue830]

​@@user-qu6qg7sk4v It was a whole new aircraft. Most changes they had planned for the aircraft qualifies it as such; e.g designing a rear cargo compartment rather than placing cargo beneath the fuselage which is common for commercial aircrafts, using composites and not aluminium throughout the manufacturing stage.

[@user-qu6qg7sk4v]

@@4evertrue830 True but what did they pay 0.75B $ for if they started everything from scratch?

[@awuma]

@@user-qu6qg7sk4v The CRJ is rear-engined and is a long line of many decades of development and new versions. MAC aquired it in 2020 when Bombardier divested. However, the era of the rear-engined regional jets is almost over.

[@user-qu6qg7sk4v]

@@awuma Ok so basically they somehow bought the CRJ as a good will gesture and proceeded to start their own project from scratch.

[@Patrick-eieio]

Too bad. It looked promising. It kind of reminds me of Lockheed's struggles with the L1011.

[@pizzagogo6151]

Splitting hairs - but the Mitsubishi F2 is not strictly just building licensed aircraft. Yes heavily derived from F16 but technically a native-ish design😊....I was a tiny bit disappointed as thought we were going to get through a discussion on Mitsubishi aircraft without mentioning the A6M...but it was a minimal mention so well done on that😅

[@ronjon7942]

Coulda been worse - he could’ve brought up the Proudia!

[@ianendangan7462]

We in the Philippines used to operate Nakajima YS11 and I rode with them several times as a kid

[@rafaelwilks]

What a sad irony - Mitsubishi was developing this rival to the CRJ, and it would have had a cabin wider than even the E-Jet. Now all they have is the narrow CRJ 😐 6:16 if the SpaceJet succeeded, it would most likely face issues with its Geared Turbofans, but the airframe would have been awesome!

[@ipattison]

If there was no point in having carbon fuselage because the small size meant inconsequential weight savings, why bother with the relatively miniscule carbon control surfaces?

[@constantinegiotopoulos3033]

I would have bought one if I could afford it

[@DJAYPAZ]

Given the delivery wait times major airlines are enduring for new aircraft, is there an opportunity here for this Mitsubishi aircraft ?

[@jackroutledge352]

Nah, they were still a long way from certification when it was cancelled. Also, tooling up for production would have cost a fortune, and more delays. The cancellation was well overdue when it was announced. The writing had been on the wall since about 2015.

[@4evertrue830]

My opinion; it was a scam to make money from the govt, japanese style. 😅😊

[@DJAYPAZ]

@@jackroutledge352 Thanks for replying.

[@Blank00]

What’s the latest with the Kawasaki YPX?

[@terryterry1655]

Similar size as embraer e195-e2

[@jkardez4794]

AirIndia doesn't have the Pratt&Whitney engine for its A320 fleet .

[@largezo7567]

Oslo is not in north-eastern Finland!

[@rtjahyadi7868]

Mitsubishi used to produce aircrafts during WW II, why did they stop making planes ✈️?

[@KlaunFuhrer-du7fr]

they are under US occupation since end ww2

[@fookcheonkhaw7147]

Japan is a small country which requires the USA to support for its successful launch but USA has other idea. But it is a good attempt though.

[@spacecooookie]

Hi Sky, can you do the British Handley Page Vector Bomber pleeeeeeease? 🙏

[@rambo410]

If I the country of Brazil I would be pissed. This sure looks like the Ebraer 195 family

[@miketeeveedub5779]

It's a cruel twist of fate where the Japanese failed to compete in the airliner industry when they dominated the vehicle industry during the same time period. Goes to show that you can be a great doctor, but a lousy dentist! 😉

[@stephenfazekas5054]

They made it too big to be a regional jet but too small to compete with the 318, e-jet and a220.

[@TJHofNZ]

Mitsubishi motors is owned by Nissan/Renault - completely separate from MHI these days

[@syedputra5955]

They should have just work with BAE and modify RJX from 4 to 2 engines.

[@watershed44]

"Lost opportunities and over confidence*

[@rapidthrash1964]

I wish this program will be resurrected

[@4evertrue830]

Only if they are willing to partner and share technology with China or Russia, both have the money to invest, but you know how much Japan hates China and also dislikes Russia. I don't see it going anywhere. 😕

[@DJ99777]

I hope to one day fly the Mitsubishi.

[@SiVlog1989]

When you talked about the phrase "made in Japan," it made me think of a line from the third Back to the Future film: "...no wonder the circuit fails, it says 'made in Japan'," "What do you mean Doc, all the best stuff is made in Japan," "Unbelievable,"

[@freeworld88888]

china Arj21 series are winning in Asia

[@slatkismedenjak]

ISTI KAO EMBRAER ....

[@realLsf]

A beautiful aircraft. What a crying shame

[@cuckoonut1208]

Better luck next time MR. J.

[@HappyRescues]

Its a damn shame.. all those resources and all that energy wasted for nothing

[@slypear]

Astute quote @ 11:11 That said, such a pity this machine was never realised~

[@jagdeepdesai6848]

Truly sad

[@Foxx607]

Such a shame 😢 would have being a good aircraft

[@joellamoureux7914]

As an auto mechanic, I would be very apathetic to fly in a Mitsubishi plane. Their vehicles (autos) are assembled well, but designed poorly. I cannot understand why they suffer from such catastrophic timing belt failures. I feel they used far too weak belts for their very springy valve assemblies. Toyotas belts last 200k+ miles sometimes 400k! I see mitsus breaking at 80k. I don't believe it's the belt at fault. Engineering faults like that in a plane would be really unfortunate. Luckily cars don't have to fly, or I'm afraid there would be lots of Mitsubishi rain storms.

[@malcolmdean6899]

I read that Mitsubishi cancelled the spacejet

[@supa3ek]

Mitsubishi itself is under pressure financially. Its auto division is almost dead as well !! They surely overestimated themselves !!

[@SolarMoth]

salad is always good now

[@elir.torres8642]

The Toyota of plabes man what a chace let go.

[@burntnougat5341]

Lmao 1:00 you used a bit from the Fast and Furious movie. The actor is Korean not Japanese

[@timbaskett6299]

With all of the "high volume" BBJ (Boeing Business Jets models), I could see an MBM (Mitsubushi Business Model) version. Mitsubishi should look to make a regional version of the DC-8.....fast, small and with a short take off and landing model. Call it the MRQT (Mitsubishi Regional Quiet Transsonic).

[@4evertrue830]

Are you trying to encourage them to waste more tax payers money? They don't have the technical knowhow from the beginning.

[@bOZONee]

It's just like Lexus LFA of Airliner, over ambitious, over budget, and failed miserably

[@burntnougat5341]

Except unlike the LFA, it was never sold commercially

[@25029]

Where are the sources of your words..!!?

[@vtwinbreed]

It's really unfortunate, it looked like it could have been a nice contender.

[@Ramesh-ef8ev]

IT'S RIGHT TIME FOR JAPAN 🇯🇵 TO ENTER AIR LINES INDUSTRY WITH OUT WASTING A MINUTE WITH PARTNERING WITH INDIA . ALMOST ALL THEIR AIRCRAFT'S CAN BE USED BY INDIA 🇮🇳 ALONE 25, 50 ,100 , 150 SEATS AIRCRAFT'S VERY IDEAL FOR INDIA DOMESTIC AIRLINE INDUSTRY .

[@worawatli8952]

It was a bummer this didn't get into production, they tried to innovate a lot and came out at the worst time in pandemic, Japanese take times to do things, to do it best. Just like Japanese mobile phones, if you ever had one, I have few until I can't get them anymore, you would wonder how the heck they made profit making such quality products, none, they made zero profit. lol It was why they are gone from market. Fewer Japanese brands are on the global market now because despite their quality, their prices can't compete, and their products release are very slow. But I'll buy Japanese whenever I see its value, they still make many things that better than Chinese and Korean.

[@johniii8147]

Doesn't really have much to do with the pandemic. It has already failed long before that.

[@Epic_Routes]

Japan mistake was allowing America in to industry. Japan used to be big in most industries then they became American corporation in to their industries.

[@FirstLast_Nba]

Having America as an occupying master is such a drag.

[@kaloschke]

Same in germany...

[@user-qu6qg7sk4v]

Actually, Japan would have never had anywhere near the industry they had if not for US keeping the red plague (russians) out, giving aid/subsidizing, transferring technology, securing the oceans and allowing access to it's market. A lot of this applies to Germany as well.

[@FirstLast_Nba]

@@user-qu6qg7sk4v Shalom....???

[@daseinzigwahrem]

​@@user-qu6qg7sk4vYes, the comments here are pretty dumb.

[@bricefleckenstein9666]

0:06 Looks like Grant County International, where a lot of the US flight testing for the MRJ was done. I'd see it flying overhead about once a week during that time (I lived in the general area at the time). The COVID hit, and appears to have killed the project for a long time if not totally.

[@mejestic124]

They should first had to make a indigenous military transport aircraft.

[@FirstDagger]

Kawasaki does their large indigenous military transport aircraft with their own indigenous airframes. The issue was Mitsubishi.

[@EuropeanRailfanAlt]

The newest regional jets aren't doing very well. The A220, albeit not entirely a regional jet, is only doing well because Airbus took over it.

[@kevinp8108]

Once Japan gets its act together, the could be a formidable competitor for Boeing and Airbus! If they can make their passenger aircraft as good as their passenger cars, then they could take a share out of the lucrative wide-body passenger aircraft industry!

[@user-qu6qg7sk4v]

Their cars are not as good as you think.

[@daseinzigwahrem]

Cars are much simpler to manufacture. And Japan currently seems to cooperate with the US, not compete.

[@kennycheung1743]

Not really. Both Boeing and Airbus more or less have a large enough home turf to support the operation and call in favour of their own governments. However, the Japanese domestic market is insufficient to sustain an aircraft manufacturer by itself, so it has to rely on the export market for it to stand a chance of being successful. How likely are airline operators will take a chance on an unproven model? I think the only aircraft manufacturer that might stand a chance of becoming a legitimate contender aside from Airbus, Boeing & Embraer, will be Comac if they manage to get their act together and produce quality products since the Chinese market is big enough to sustain a aircraft manufacturer.

[@4evertrue830]

When are they ever going to get their acts together? From their first in-roads into robotics, then rocketry, space satellite manufacturing and now failure in aircrafts production, have they not lost their way? China is ascending in all these fields, Japan is descending. When are they going to get their acts together?

[@burntnougat5341]

Their current cars are uggo. Only a few handful look good like the LC500

[@Philfluffer]

Regional airlines in the United States may bear the logo of the big airlines but they are predominantly serviced by contractors that are wholly independent of the large airlines.

[@johniii8147]

Not really. AA owns Envoy Air, PSA Airlines, and Piedmont Airlines, Delta owns Endeavor, Alaska owns Horizon.

[@Atricapilla]

Such a shame. Would have been great to have the MRJ available to airlines and passengers.

[@waterunderthefridge6058]

it was quite sad to see the test aircraft being broken up a few months ago with so little sentimentality. A commercial failure but a chapter in the history of aviation for Japan and the world nonetheless

[@johniii8147]

One they would rather forget and get all that money back.

[@michaelsamuel9917]

They should've done a partnership with Bombardier !

[@johniii8147]

Two weak players don't make a strong one. Just gets into a bigger mess.

[@Sacto1654]

The MRJ failed because that very market was taken by the Bombardier CS100, and even more so once Airbus took over the Bombardier C-Series program in October 2017 and used its resources to support the now-A220 program.

[@4evertrue830]

Maybe, but in the last decade there has been a shortage of new aircrafts in the business corporate avaition industry, as well as not much competition in the larger turbo-prop area too. If they really cared, they could have modified it to fit into these two fields of avaition easily.

[@johniii8147]

No the MRJ failed because they lacked the expertise to properly develop it.

[@watershed44]

*I wonder why another company didn't buy the license to build this aircraft?* Essentially all the hard work was done, only thing left was to put it into production

[@awuma]

Hard to compete with the A220 and E-Jet E2 series. The A220 is doing well in the market, the E2 poorly (despite Embraer's well-established market presence).

[@user-yt7gm1pn6k]

The plane looks awesome, in all its' variants, shame they scaled back, after all those hard won lessons.

[@nicolek4076]

When I was very young, over 65 years ago, "Made in Japan" was a mark of cheap and nasty manufacture, poor quality and pretty useless products.

[@user-qu6qg7sk4v]

Sounds almost like the Chinese of today

[@burntnougat5341]

Wow you're old