Japan’s first passenger jet makes maiden test flight, days after China’s Comac C919 rolled out

Japan’s first passenger jet made its maiden test flight on Wednesday, a landmark in a decade-long programme to launch the plane aimed at competing with Brazilian and Canadian rivals in the global market for smaller aircraft.

It comes just days after Comac C919, the first first Chinese-developed passenger jet, rolled off the assembly line in Shanghai.

READ MORE: C919 unveiled: China trumpets first homegrown jetliner in bid to compete with Boeing, Airbus

 About half a century after the last Japanese-made commercial plane took to the skies, the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), painted with dark blue, red and beige stripes, took off from Nagoya airport under clear skies for a 90-minute trip.

 After being barred from developing aircraft following the second world war, Japan – and its MRJ jet – is competing with other regional passenger jet manufacturers such as Brazil’s Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier.

 The two-engine MRJ – developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries – marks a new chapter for Japan’s aviation sector, which last built a commercial airliner in 1962 – the YS-11 turboprop that was discontinued about a decade later.