In 1929, Tetsuo Miki, a designer at Aichi Tokei Denki Kabushiki Kaisha started the design of a catapult launched reconnaissance floatplane with the aim of replacing the Nakajima E2N aboard the Imperial Japanese Navy’s warships.
Miki’s design was a small single-engine biplane.
Its fuselage was of steel tube construction with fabric covering, while it had wooden wings that folded to the rear for storage aboard ship.
Power plant was a 330 hp (246 kW) Aichi AC-1, an experimental radial engine.
The two-man crew sat in open cockpits, while the aircraft’s undercarriage consisted of twin floats.
The two prototypes were completed and flown in 1930.
The AC-1 engine was not successful, however, and the project was abandoned after one of the prototypes was destroyed when an exhaust fire spread to the fuselage.
The Aichi AB-3 was a Japanese ship-board reconnaissance floatplane of the 1930s.
The AB-3, a single-seat, single-engine biplane, was designed to equip a light cruiser Ning Hai being built in Japan for the Chinese navy, a single aircraft being accepted by the Chinese.
