@ Tokorozawa, Japan
April 2025
On a recent trip to Japan, I was able to make time to visit my first Japanese aviation museum. The Tokorozawa Aviation Museum happens to be located near Iruma Air Base, so I was quite delighted to see military traffic overhead as we approached the museum. This is the Kawasaki C-2 military transport, the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) currently operates 14 in their fleet. The C-2 is a high-speed transport, able to cruise at Mach 0.8 which allows it to fly on commercial air routes (unlike the C-17 which is unable to due to a slower cruise speed). Compared to the older C-1 that it replaces, the C-2 can carry 4X more payload, with 6X more range. First flown in 2010, it entered service in 2016 and is currently in production.
