Kawanishi K-7

The Kawanishi K-7 Transport Seaplane was a single-engined biplane floatplane of the 1920s, built in eleven examples from 1924 to 1927 to carry passengers and airmail. Eiji Sekiguchi began the design in December 1923 for Nippon Koku, the airline subsidiary of Kawanishi, as a sesquiplane of all-wooden construction with a lower wing much smaller than the upper. An enclosed cabin seated four passengers, with the two pilots in separate open tandem cockpits behind it. Power came from a 305 horsepower Maybach Mb.IVa water-cooled inline engine, a type normally used in Zeppelins and received as German reparations after the First World War. The first K-7A was completed in November 1924, ten were built in all, and one K-7B mail carrier could operate on floats or with a wheeled undercarriage. The K-7A entered service between Osaka and Fukuoka in January 1925, mostly carrying airmail, and stayed in use until 1929, when Nippon Koku was disbanded.