Buying American

By Bill Lee

It looks as if Japan is giving up the domestic development of its next-generation fighter jet to replace its aging F-15 fighters. Reuters first reported in November last year that the Ministry of Defense was having doubts about domestic development of an F-3 air superiority fighter. It reported that the MOD would delay a decison until 2018 or beyond, which would be the death knell for domestic production since such a project could not be included in the next five-year defense plan starting from 2019.

The dropping of the plan for domestic developmen will be a blow to Japan’s domestic defense industry, particularly to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. There were apparently three options for MOD: develop a 5th-generation fighter domestically, jointly develop a fighter jet with an internatinoal partner, or upgrade the current F-2 fighters. The first option would involve staggering costs (a $40 billion dollar initial price tag) and the technical challenge of developing systems for a next-generation fighter aircraft. Reuters quoted an official as saying, “All we have now is a flying box,” without the necessory weapons and avionics systems. The second option will basically mean reworking an existing foreign, i.e., US or European, fighter plane. The third option is not attractive, given the obvious caps on performance capability.

Japan strongly wanted the F-22 Raptor, which has unparalled stealth and performance capabilities, but the US wouldn’t sell them to Japan. Now that the Chinese have unveilied their J-20 stealth fighter jets, Japan is under pressure to procure high-performance next-generations fighter jets that can ensure air superiority as well as have top-notch anti-ship capabilities.  It looks as if Japan will acquire more F-35As, which have good all-around capabilities, with some STOLV F-35Bs also in the mix.

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Photo by AiirSource  via Flickr