The 1923
Taihoku-go (
Taipei) was given its name since it was built to an order from Wen-Ta Shie, a pilot from
Taiwan which was then under Japanese rule. It was the first Japanese-designed civil aircraft to enclose its passengers in a cabin, limousine style. Such aircraft had been developed in Europe soon after the end of
World War I with conversions of war surplus machines, though luxurious accommodation for more passengers was provided in purpose-built types like the
Westland Limousine as early as 1919. Generally the pilot was separated from the passengers or raised above them, in an open cockpit. The Emi 29 was a
two bay biplane with wooden-structured,
fabric-covered wings braced by parallel pairs of
interplane struts and a short, parallel-strutted central
cabane. Its
ailerons, fitted to both upper and lower wings, were externally interconnected. It was powered by a
Hispano-Suiza 8B water-cooled
V-8 engine. This had rectangular, side-on
radiators just behind the engine, as on the earlier
Itoh Emi 14 and
Emi 16, and fuel tanks in and above the central upper wing. The pilot's cockpit was ahead of, but separated from, an enclosed two seat passenger cabin glazed above the upper fuselage
longerons and dropping away behind. The flat-sided fuselage was
plywood-covered to the rear of the cabin and fabric-covered aft. The tail was conventional, with the
tailplane and
balanced elevators mounted on top of the fuselage and with a
fin and
balanced rudder of triangular profile. The Emi 29's wide track, fixed
undercarriage was also conventional with mainwheels, on a single axle between V-struts from the lower fuselage longerons, and a tailskid. ==Operational history==