Showa Aircraft Industry Co., Ltd. (昭和飛行機工業株式会社) is a Japanese company. Its headquarters are at Akishima-shi, Tokyo Prefecture, a region of Tokyo Metropolis. It was established in 1937 as a manufacturer of military aircraft in Akishima-shi. In World War II it was one of two companies manufacturing the Showa/Nakajima L2D, a license-built Douglas DC-3 variant. It also manufactured other military aircraft.[1] Since the 1950s the company began to manufacture specialized freight trucks such as tank trucks and grain hopper trailers.[2]
Honeycomb panels manufactured by Showa Aircraft Industry has been used on a number of spacecraft including the Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission, the joint NASA-JAXA GPM Core Observatory satellite, and the H-II Transfer Vehicle.[3]