As testing showed that its performance was inadequate, it was abandoned, no attempt being made on the trans-Pacific flight.

In September 1927 the Japanese aircraft company Kawanishi Engineering Works starting the design of an aircraft meant to carry out a non-stop flight across the Pacific between Japan and the United States, hoping to win a cash prize offered by a major Japanese newspaper for the first aircraft to make such a flight.

Kawanishi's design, the K-12 Sakura, was a large high-winged monoplane of all-wooden construction, with a fixed tailwheel undercarriage, powered by a single BMW VI V12 engine, licence built by Kawasaki.

[2] The aircraft was christened the Nichi-Bei-Go (Japan-US Model), and was planned to carry out the trans-Pacific flight over the North Pacific later in the year.

[3] It was therefore abandoned, with the first prototype being left hanging from the ceiling of the assembly shop of the Kawanishi factory for several years, allegedly as an example of "How not to design and build a Special- Purpose Aeroplane".