Kawanishi K-6

The Kawanishi K-6 was a two-bay biplane floatplane built in 1923 to carry two passengers, designed by Eiji Sekiguchi after the larger K-5 proved too underpowered to take off with any significant load. It reused the 260 to 305 horsepower Maybach Mb.IV engine, was fabric covered over a wooden structure, and had a deep flat-sided rear fuselage that did away with a fixed fin, with flat-surfaced floats under the fuselage. Intended for Kawanishi's airline Nippon Koku, it was first used in the Around Japan Flight of July 1924, flown by Yukichi Goto with a flight engineer, covering 4,389 kilometres from and back to Osaka in eight days with 33 hours 48 minutes in the air. On 2 December 1924 it won the seaplane category of the Round Ise Bay event, then returned to transport duties. Only the one aircraft was built, as the company turned its attention to the K-7.