“American people love airplanes,” Michimasa Fujino, HondaJet project leader and VP of Honda R&D America Inc., told the crowd at a welcoming ceremony at Aeroshell Square. “Look at Oshkoshthere are so many airplanes and so many people who love airplanes. That’s why I was convinced that Oshkosh AirVenture is the most appropriate place to introduce this Honda jet.”
Though talk of the HondaJet, based at Piedmont Triad Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, has swirled in aviation circles for several years, it was only in December 2003 that Honda announced the aircraft’s existence. The involvement of a major automobile manufacturer in producing an aircraft—particularly a light jet—has fired the interest of the general aviation community. But Honda has said little about its long-range plans for the program, a position it maintained at AirVenture.