Only five in the world! RAC’s “Japan’s shortest airline route” is disappearing, but the company actually has something else unique in its fleet. As mentioned earlier, there are only five RAC aircraft in the world. Why did Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier develop a “special version for the remote islands of Okinawa” for RAC? The Bombardier DHC-8-Q series turboprop aircraft (propeller-driven aircraft), also known as the “Bon-Q,” is the base of RAC’s fleet, and more than 800 of these aircraft have been produced worldwide. RAC’s aircraft, however, is the DHC-8-Q400 “CC” (Cargo Combination) with a “CC” (Cargo Combination) at the end. It has a unique cargo space of approximately 23.4 m2, 2.5 times the usual size, at the rear of the aircraft. The reason for the need to customize the aircraft was to enhance air transportation. The remote islands of Okinawa are home to many high-value specialty products, such as swordfish tuna (Yonaguni Island), oysters and prawns (Kume Island), and abalone (Daito Islands), but the DHC-8-Q300s in service until then had limited cargo space, and passengers’ luggage was given priority. The Yonaguni and Daito Islands, which have few port calls, were forced to rely on weather conditions and luck in order to ship their marine products. We want to deliver tasty and high unit price marine products to the place of consumption (Naha, etc.) while they are still fresh and stable. The “aircraft with a large cargo space” needed for this purpose has been the long-cherished wish of not only RAC but also the remote island regions of Okinawa. However, Bombardier, the developer of the Bonn Q, did not seem to have much expertise in making cargo space wider. In the past, a Canadian airline (Wasaya Airlines) converted a Q100 into a freighter, but it is not common to hear of the development of an aircraft that has both passenger and cargo space while maintaining a good weight balance, so the conversion would not have been a simple task. Bombardier named the company as the “launch customer” to develop the aircraft for RAC. As a “launch customer,” Bombardier would be able to make certain requests in exchange for a lump-sum purchase of the new aircraft developed. However, most major airlines with strong capital, such as ANA/JAL, are in this position, and it is quite unusual for a small company like RAC to become a launch customer. The RAC representative who flew to Canada desperately attended the meetings in English, and the Bombardier representative visited remote island airports in Okinawa to thoroughly understand their requirements. Thus, the “DHC” was built to “RAC specifications,” including “a larger cargo hold and the same number of seats as a Q300 (50 seats),” “a capacity to carry five swordfish tuna without transferring the smell to the cabin,” and “the constant loading of 1,000 tons of ballast at the tail to ensure balance. Five DHC-8-Q400CCs were put into service in succession over a two-year period starting in 2016, and are currently in service.
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