Michimasa Fujino, chief executive of Honda Aircraft Co., clambers up a steep ladder to a grated-metal platform to check on his baby. At eye level he peers inside the machinery where Honda’s new advanced light jet is choking in wires and sensors–3,000 gauges in all–an ugly cross between a spacecraft and a Christmas tree. He’s collecting data on the plane’s structural integrity while it’s being buffeted with simulated forces well above its maximum loads.
The plane’s composite fuselage holds up well, as expected, inside this sophisticated torture chamber in Greensboro, N.C.–a good sign. Next door, in a sparkling new factory with soaring ceilings and a floor so glossy you can see your reflection in it, workers dressed in bright white uniforms are handcrafting HondaJets for customers who have been waiting more than eight years to take delivery. The wait is nearly over. On Mar. 27 the plane received provisional type certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, a critical milestone that means it is safe for flight. Final FAA approval is expected in the next few months.
When it comes, it will be a great relief for Honda, the $117 billion (sales) Japanese industrial icon (No. 63 on the Global 2000) best known for making cars, motorcycles and power generators. The launch of HondaJet, three decades in the making at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion to $2 billion, is an opportunity to shift the focus away from a string of crises that knocked the company off its game in recent years. It survived the Great Recession only to be rocked by the Japanese tsunami and then a flood of quality recalls that tarnished its reputation. Earlier this year U.S. regulators slapped Honda with a record $70 million fine for failing to report warranty claims and more than 1,700 incidents involving death or injury, as required under the government’s early-warning safety system. A few weeks later Honda said CEO Takanobu Ito, 61, would step down in June after six years at the helm. Honda officials disputed reports that Ito was pushed out, noting that his tenure was in line with past CEOs and that he handpicked his successor.
While the company is thrilled to showcase its reviving industrial ingenuity, no one will be happier than Fujino. The delivery of the first HondaJets in the next few months is the culmination of a 29-year obsession to create a breakthrough small jet aircraft–quieter, roomier and faster than any rival on the commercial market.
With a price tag of $4.5 million, the HondaJet is being marketed as a tool for business owners who have assets of $20 million to $40 million and want to keep tabs on their operations. But they’re just as likely to use one for a quick golf outing or weekend getaway. These buyers, mostly in the U.S., were hit hard when the economy tanked, and many wouldn’t have been able to get financing anyway. But Honda’s timing could be right, says aviation consultant Rolland Vincent. Worldwide sales of business jets rose 6.5% in 2014, to 722 planes, worth $22 billion. Although very light jets (like the 9,200-or-so-pound HondaJet) are still lagging, sales are perking up. Last year 87 light jets (under 12,500 pounds) were delivered, up from 77 in 2013 but still way down from the 371 delivered in 2008. “The feeling that we’re through this dark time is highest among smaller-jet owners,” Vincent said. Early demand is promising. Honda already has more than 100 orders. Successful newcomers are rare in the aviation industry, but Honda’s credibility in autos gives it a better chance than most, says Vincent. “Who can question their engineering prowess, their manufacturing expertise, their supply chains?”
And who can question Fujino’s determination to reinvent business jet travel?
“My career objective was to create a concept for an airplane, and design and sell it by myself,” said the intense but soft-spoken Fujino, a youthful-looking 54, with thick eyebrows and large wire-rim glasses competing for attention. “I don’t want to be [responsible for] just a portion of the product. I want to start by concept.”
It’s hardly the traditional deflated-ego kenkyo of a “team-first” Tokyo salaryman, but that’s Fujino. In an age where engineering is dominated by anonymous teams his HondaJet, with its long tapered nose and distinctive engine placement on top of the wings, is a personal statement, the aluminum and carbon-fiber embodiment of an extraordinary decades-long journey that led him from his birthplace in Japan to a Mississippi college town, back to the boardrooms of Japan and, finally, to the helm of this manufacturing plant in North Carolina, 240 miles–as the private jet flies–from Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers took flight in 1903.
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