An Encounter with an Airplane

Hideo Itokawa was born in Tokyo on July 17, 1912. When he was at primary school, his father took him to a park in Tokyo where an American pilot looped the loop, which deeply moved him. The sight determined the course of his life. Without hesitation, he went on to major in aeronautical engineering at Tokyo University. After graduating, he entered Nakajima Aircraft Company, a core company of Nakajima Konzern, which developed rapidly along with the militarization of the Japanese economy. Itokawa joined the design team on fighters such as HAYABUSA and SHOHKI. His research on aircraft continued after he came back to University of Tokyo just before the end of World War II .