JASDF Kawasaki C-1 operations ended
We all knew Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) Kawasaki C-1 operations would end in March 2025, as official bulletins claimed it would end in the last month of Japan's Fiscal Year 2024. However the JASDF did not wait until the very end but stopped flying its last four aircraft in three consecutive days this week.
On 12 March 2025, C-1 08-1030 flew from Iruma to Hamamatsu where it performed some touch & goes and some combat manoeuvres, after which it made a full-stop, received a water salute and was retired.
On 13 March 2025, EC-1 78-1021 made a local flight from Iruma and more or less repeated the flight profile of 030, including the water salute.
And on 14 March 2025, these events were again repeated in the final flights of C-1FTB 28-1001 from Gifu and C-1 28-1002 in the Phoenix livery from Iruma, concluding 53 years of JASDF C-1 operations.
In the mid-1960s, the JASDF's transport fleet was outdated, consisting mainly of C-46 Commandos, therefore the JASDF approached the Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation (NAMC), which was building the YS-11 airliner, to develop an indigenous transport aircraft. NAMC decided that Kawasaki would serve as the main contractor but several other members of the NAMC-consortium were tasked with manufacturing other portions.
The prototype XC-1 (as 18-1001) first flew on 12 November 1970 and was handed over to the Defense Agency in February 1971 for testing. In 1972 the first aircraft was handed over to the JASF as C-1 28-1001. A total of 31 C-1s were manufactured by Kawasaki for operations in three JASDF Hikotais, 401 Hikotai from Komaki, 402 Hikotai from Iruma and 403 Hikotai from Miho.
After Okinawa was returned to Japan, the maximum range of the C-1 became problematic as it was unable to fly directly to the island without a fuel stop. Probably the reason the JASDF procured the C-130H Hercules and reduce the number of planned C-1s.
Besides the 31 JASDF C-1 aircraft, another two fuselages and one aircraft were built. A static strength test fuselage might still be in use as a ground trainer at Camp Narashino, and a fatigue strength test fuselage, also for ground training at Camp Matsudo. The National Aerospace Laboratory acquired a single C-1 and modified it extensively into the Asuka Quiet STOL aircraft, now preserved inside the Kakamigahara Air and Space Museum near Gifu.
Credit photo: Dietmar Fenners (Scramble Archive)