Following two earlier prototypes, twenty-one production examples were built between 1936 and 1940 and served in the Second Sino-Japanese War.
In August 1932, the Japanese Army placed an order for a small ambulance aircraft, capable of using rough airstrips and holding two stretcher cases and a medical attendant, with what was then the Aeroplane Factory of Ishikawajima Shipbuilding Company.
By then, the Ishikawajima Company had become the Tachikawa Aeroplane Co.[1] It was a single bay cabin biplane with wings attached to the upper and lower longerons and braced on each side with near-parallel interplane struts.
[1] As its purpose was to rescue patients from rough airfields or unmade airstrips, the ambulance needed a robust undercarriage.
Both short, faired shock absorber legs and their rearward drag struts were mounted on the lower fuselage longerons.