EXPERIMENTAL RECONNAISSANCE SEAPLANE TATSU-GO

The Yokosho Tatsu-Go was a Japanese prototype low-wing reconnaissance seaplane with a fixed float landing gear from the interwar period. The flight of the prototype took place in 1925 - the machine never entered mass production. The drive was provided by a single Mitsubishi Hi engine with a power of up to 320 HP. The length of the aircraft was 9.15 meters with a wingspan of 15 meters. The deck armament consisted of a single 7.7 mm machine gun. The Yokosho Tatsu-Go was commissioned by the Japanese Navy Command, which in the first half of the 1920s sought to obtain a new reconnaissance seaplane, which was to be built in the low wing configuration. The new machine was to be inspired by the solutions used in Hansa-Brandenburg and Dornier airplanes from that period. Finally, a machine was created in the Yokosho factory, which is the first fully metal seaplane in Japan, powered by an engine with a large maximum power for those times. However, the Yokosho Tatsu-Go showed a lot of problems during the tests, the main one being poor flight stability. For these reasons, the machine did not enter production.