Gallery: PAW 2004-22
Flight Maintenance School
Suginami, Tokyo
Yes, that's indeed a small airplane in the middle of a building in Japan. I've walked by it several times before deciding to stop in. The plane belongs to a flight maintenance school in Suginami ward of Tokyo. The students work on engine and equipment maintenance. One of the instructors showed us around and even let me sit in the cockpit. You can see the engines that the students are working on in the background of the photograph below.
I'm presuming the plane was dismantled and reassembled in order to get into the room, because the only entrance to the room are the small double doors in the background of the top photograph.
I wasn't sure what type of plane it was since I didn't know that Japan had a domestic light plane industry. Jiao on the CVUG list and Chandos on the LUG wrote in and suggested that the plane might be a Fuji FA-200 Aero Subaru. Judging from the specs on the site Jiao sent me, I think they're right:
If you thought a small plane in a small room was strange, the school also has a helicopter permanently landed on top of their school building. I couldn't get a shot from street level and didn't have time to go up and take a look, but it's on my list of things to do.
These photos were using the 35mm Summaron f/2.8 with eyeglasses on my Leica M3. The Summaron has a tendency to soften everything and render it with pastel colors. Here, it works. The plane almost looks fake, like it's a scale model or something. The Summaron isn't perfect. A couple of frames later, it flared out. I need to find a good shade for it.
Filename: 041008a-04-Tokyo-M3.jpg
Equipment: Leica M3, 35mm f/2.8 Summaron