JAL Hangar Tour/Sky Museum?
 

I'm trying to sign up for the JAL Hangar Tour and while I've been lucky enough to find availability that coincides with a brief four day visit to Tokyo, I'm having some trouble completing the application, especially as a non-Japanese speaker. Has anyone who is not a Japanese speaker and is not residing in Japan been able to apply online or do I need to involve a Japanese speaker? I keep running into trouble with typing my name in Katakana (ran it through a converter and pasted it in) and also with the line which seems to be asking me for a JL flight number (JAL便の利用). I'm under the impression that visiting is not conditional on holding a JL ticket or being a JMB member.

Alternatively, is it possible to just visit Sky Museum and skip all of this hassle?

I have no problems signing up. In fact, I am going again tomorrow.

No need to type in Japanese, just use English name and you don't have to put in the flight info.

But the entire tour is conducted in Japanese, so be prepared.

Actually they specially arranged a small group English tour for me today :D

There's a hangar tour?! Where have I been these past several years??

Where can I get more info in english? I can only find a japanese page.

http://www.jal.co.jp/kengaku/

Also the booking form seems to be in japanese. Any ideas?

JALPak: How did you arrange an English tour?

I didn't request for it. They somehow arranged one for us.

Could you provide some guidance on how to make a reservation? I wasn't able to find an English version of this site: http://www.jal.co.jp/kengaku -- Any help would be much appreciated. Cheers

It's a bit difficult to explain here as reservations are all in Japanese. So far from checking the availability (as of today), the following dates are ok :

May 2014 - 9,12,13,14,15,19,28,30
Jun 2014 - 19
Jul 2014 - 15
Nov 2015 - 5,7

Dates not mentioned here are already fully booked. Might want to try calling (+81 3-5756-1155 9:30～16:30 JST)them to book and say you don't speak Japanese. If you need further help, PM me and may be I can help book a tour for you. :)

Is this museum worth a visit for a) a commercial aviation geek or b) a civilian with no particular interest in aviation? I'm visiting Tokyo with a few friends in tow, so just wondering if I should head out by myself or have them come with me (or just skip it all together).

I brought my mom (JAL? LOL) who has no interests in JAL or aviation to the full tour and after the visit she said it worths visiting it. But they gave us a semi private tour in English though :p So not sure if it makes any difference if your friend doesn't understand Japanese at all.

Has anyone tried booking this lately?

I've tried a variety of dates and times but consistently get the following error:

...which, as far as I can tell, is just a generic error telling me to try again. Anything I can do, short of making a long-distance call tomorrow? Appreciate any help.

At which stage you got this error?

At the very end- after selecting date/time, entering all personal information and confirming everything was entered correctly.

Never mind. Tried again this evening following the same steps I did last night, and this time I was successful in booking the tour.

Looking forward to it! Had no idea JAL offered such a thing in the past.

Booked and going on Friday morning.

Looking forward to it.

Last year when I visited I saw a 767-300ER, 777-300, 787-8 and a 747-400 (Japanese Air Force Two). But I was told not to upload any photos of the government exclusive aircraft as it is forbidden by the Japan Self-Defense Forces.

Despite it all being Japanese, it was well worth it.

Getting right onto the hanger floor, walking around to the open doors and looking over the runway.

There was a 777 going through retrofit and upgrade, another going through routine inspection.

The presentation highlighted what parts of the Boeing plane is made in Japan and which company actually makes it. It was Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Fuji does this, does that. Interesting to know that 21 percent of a boeing plane is made in Japan.

When the new Airbus order will be filled.

It was more than I expected. Highly recommend especially if you understand basic Japanese.

Just came back from the tour today. Highly recommended even for the non-Japanense speaker! There's an English version of the printed material at the check in. Just ask the person giving you your lanyard badge. Lots of interesting items at the gift shop, nice exhibits, and the classroom presentation was fairly understandable. Highlight of the tour was the maintenance hanger of course! Lots and lots of opportunities to take pictures or have your picture taken!

Couple of points from my own experience:
Google Translate was extremely helpful in figuring out how to fill in the forms and the follow on emails from JAL.
If you're taking the Monorail to Haneda, make sure to take the local and not the express. Station is Shin Seibijo after the International Terminal stop and before Terminal One, not to be confused with Seibijo station before the International Terminal.

ETA: There's an offer on the back of the admission badge for 100 miles when enrolling in JMB at the tour and a special kids JMB card for their enrollment (if Google Translate is translating it correctly). Didn't know!

Hi,

I am desperately trying to book a visit of the JAL Sky museum and although I am writing everything in Japanese on the form, I keep getting the error message stating I should be writing in Katakana. Any way someone non-Japanese speaker has been able to register using their website ? I have been using Google translate to complete the forms required. The only Latin characters I am using are for the email adress and the numbers (street number, telephone, birth date...)

• 【フリガナ】片仮名で入力してください.

Can someone please help me ? I found the perfect dates for this visit and the slots are filling up fast !

Thanks for your help !

Yeah, this is what I did... My first name for instance is Guillaume, which translates into ウィリアム (English equivalent of my name is William - this translation is offered by google translate). For my last name, I translated each syllable using an online dictionary.

Thank you!

Yes indeed.

https://jalfactorytour.secure.force....n_note_002.gif以下をご確認ください

• 【フリガナ】片仮名で入力してください.

The error is stating that the furigana field is not valid.
There is a field below your first/last name which you'll have to fill in again with the reading of your name. Make sure it's filled in. (which in palmanfr's case would be the same in both fields since it is non-kanji)

Thanks everyone for their assistance. It seems to have been working now. I received the booking confirmation on my email. Hopefully they won't gave me a hard time because the name on my passport is slightly different than the Japanese characters google translated !

The error message appears to be saying that there is furigana in one of your fields (basically little kana next to kanji characters - see this explanation here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana). Google Translate might be inserting furigana in some fields. Have a quick look to see if you see any little characters, and perhaps delete them and try resubmitting the form?

Edit: Didn't see that this query had been answered. Glad to hear it worked out! The tour is great.

Glad to know you got it resolved.
Out of curiosity, what did you have to do?

Enjoy the tour! Do make any puchases from the store at the start, either before the classroom portion or during the museum part. Once we went into the hangar, there wasn't a return to the store area.

I basically did the basic IT technique of troubleshooting... Shut down everything and restart :-)
I restarted my browser, restarted the application from start and it worked at the first attempt. However, I could not add my name in Latin characters but only in Japanese characters, so I hope they wont be giving me trouble when I will show up as the Japanese translation of my first and last name are approximate... I guess they will check my passport upon entering the building right ?
Thanks for everyone's help !
Guillaume

Thanks for the advice ! I definitely want to check out the goodies store !

JAL posted a video tour of the Sky Museum and maintenance hanger

I think this video is misleading :D, when I was there few times previously. All i met is Uncle and Aunties who is ex pilot/mechanic/station manager/cabin crew which know their stuff quite well:tu:

Never met young folks as per video :( or most probably i went at the wrong time slot :confused:

Isnt that closed down for while (during the peak of Covid-19) that they are going to do some renovation? What changes they made before and after. The video seems like everything is still thte same more or less.

Were tours in english available?

No English tour available officially on paper. The whole classroom lecture is all done in Japanese but it is quite simple to understand from slides presented.

Also, if they note that if you non Japanese speaker they usually will assign to one of the facilitator (the uncle/aunties i wrote earlier) who can speak English or Mandarin (one of them do converse in mandarin) during the Hanger Tour where they will explain to you on the side. If there is a large group of non Japanese speaker they will group you together (that how i end up with group of Taiwanese who were also there too).

So nothing much to worry about for those who dont converse in Japanese.

They also had the guide book in English too.

I see, thanks.