Abraham Ait, The Diplomat: Why the F-35 Isn’t Good Enough for Japan
Tokyo looks to American and indigenous alternatives as a result of the joint strike fighter’s shortcomings.
During the Cold War, Japan’s Air Force deployed some of the most advanced aerial warfare capabilities in the world. The country’s large economy and strategic importance to the U.S.-led alliance network led it to be provided with the most elite American made fighters available. While lower tier U.S. allies such as South Vietnam and the Philippines were provided with lighter second generation F-5 fighters, Japan was sold large numbers of the heavy F-4 Phantom and was even permitted to jointly produce the fighters domestically. Japan went on to become an early operator of the fourth generation F-15, one of only three U.S. allies sold advanced air superiority variants of the fighter alongside Israel and Saudi Arabia. Most U.S. allies had to make do with the lighter and less capable F-16.
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WNU Editor: Talk about a total lack of confidence in the F-35. The above analysis bluntly outlines the reasons why the F-35 will not be able to meet Japan's aviation needs.
Maybe spend another 1-2 trillion on it, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThis project needs to be investigated -- it's perhaps the biggest budget and product and project failure in history and something tells me a few billion here and there got lost due to corruption. Or it really has been utter incompetence for a decade+..
What Japan fails to understand is the F15 is still a very capable air superiority fighter. That the F22 is so effective because they are a rarity and if mass produced or gifted to Japan they would undermine the program. The FY22 prototypes which have better stealth capabilities could potentially be made functional under the same pretense. Japan doesn't need stealth, they need quantities of barebones capable fighters. The F35 would meet their needs as a stealth plane supporting their fleet of F15's but they have no need for a F22, not when it could be so easily flown into enemy territory without refueling.
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