"japan May Buy Eurofighter" - Drops intrest in F-22

[AeroplaneDriver]

Well, whilst in the shower (been a quiet shift, plant shut down ) I got to thinking about what upgrades a JASDF typhoon would have

Obviously AAM-3 and -4 instead of ASRAAM and Meteor/AMRAAM

New engines?  Probly not as the Tiffie is already pretty powerful, but maybe thrust vectoring (has this been tested/trialed/proposed?)

New radar.  Its conventional planar array is probly the Typhoons weakest point, so a Phased Array seems a must to me considering all those 2nd gen Flankers she's be up against.  Again, have there been any developments in this area?  Would the Superbugs radar fit?  An indiginous Japanese design?

I know one of the reasons Singapore downselected the Typhoon in favour of the F-15E is that a lot of the more advanced developments haven't been fully integrated yet, which seem to me to be the only thinking holding the plane back.  We have a 5th gen fighter with a lot of 4th gen features, whereas the Americans have a lot of 4th gen fighters with 5th gen avionics.....

IIRC the Spanish were working on TVC for the EJ2000, and BAES were looking at it as part of the Sea Typoon study.  It would certainly be doable if the money was there.  I think AESA radar is in the works too.

[elmayerle]

If memory serves me correctly, the Mitsubishi Electronics radar in the F-2 already is an AESA design and I could see a developed version being fitted to their version of the Typhoon, as well as a lot of their displays and such (makes sense to have component commonality where possible - does give one some thoughts for a F-15JKai, doesn't it?).

[nev]

The F-2 does have AESA radar, but its optimised for anti-shipping, and reading around it appears to be a quite primitive piece of kit, nowhere near as advanced as US radars.  Then again, now that they've learnt something about building such a radar....

[lancer]

That'd be sweet ! Has anybody built a Japanese Typhoon yet ?

Got one on my to do list

[ysi_maniac]

Mitsubishi F-2 have bigger wings than F-16. So, what about the big wing Eurofighter that BAe was studying, for Japanese license production?

[borntokillagain]

With a twin tail and bigger wings the EF200 will look just like the original F-2/FS-X proposal Nid to find dat pic.

[nev]

Hey, Nev, did you see that report in the press yesterday that the MoD have approached a number of countries to take surplus Typhoons off their hands - reason being that MoD has run out of pennies and cannot afford the follow-on order (88 airframes) that they had comitted themselves to. Top of the list of countries approached is JAPAN !

Seen that report now - several problems with it.  If Japan do buy the Typhoon they will want to build their own, and not buy ones manufactured elsewhere.  And if a sale does come from a British buy the other partners will not be happy about what is a net loss of sales and therefore work.  And I'm not sure they are prepared to wait till Tranche3 for their planes (contract has not even been signed yet)

I did see one the other day where Japan have put back their decison on the Phantom replacement till 2009.  Ostensibly its so they can fund more F-15 upgrades first, but it seems pretty obvious to me that they are also waiting till the next US president is sworn in to see if they can get the Raptor export ban reversed.  If not, expect the Typhoon J!

[Nigel Bunker]

Apparently MoD has had a £2billion overspend and is looking to flog off what it can toreduce this before Gordon gets cross! The 88 Typhoons they are trying to shift are the last delivery batch the UK has committed to! Another SLEP for the Tornados to kep them in operation till 2108 is probably MoDs preferred solution.

If I was running MoD I'd keep the Typhoons and scrap JSF. Apart fron the Falklands, RAF has never needed to use Harrier's VSTOL capability operationally. In my opinion (and don't dare argue) VSTOL is an cul-de-sac comprising a solution to a problem that no longer exists.

[nev]

http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/airforce/Japan_likely_to_drop_plan_to_buy_F-22_fighters_report100016836.php

Tokyo: Japan is likely to drop its attempts to buy state-of-the-art US F-22 Raptor stealth fighter planes since it expects the United States to stop producing them, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Japanese government had been trying to persuade the United States to sell it F-22 Raptors to replace its own aging F-15 fleet, despite Washington's reluctance.

Tokyo, however, is now abandoning the plan amid signs that US President-elect Barack Obama's new administration may halt production of the aircraft, the Daily Yomiuri said, quoting government sources.

"We have a firm impression that its production likely would be halted," a high-ranking official at the defence ministry was quoted by the daily as saying.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reappointed to stay in the post under Obama, has said publicly that he favours halting production of the F-22.

Washington is also said to be skeptical about continuing production of the expensive planes due to the financial crisis and declining tax revenues.

US law prohibits export of Raptors as Congress remains anxious over the possible leaking of details of the Raptor's state-of-the-art technology.

[ysi_maniac]

Could they buy F-35? An improved version maybe?

[pyro-manic]

As a stealthy attack platform, the F-35 is going to be very good, but IMO it would be a major mistake to try to use it as an air superiority fighter as it is currently. Performance-wise it's supposedly at the F-16 level, far behind the F-22, Typhoon, Rafale etc.

[Gary]

This is all nice and swell, but can you put Hello Kitty on the topside? I think not, and the bottom side will be all covered in those nasty bombs and fuel tanks ad such. Unless they can make a plane that can have a giant Hello Kitty symbol on it, the Japanese Ministry of Defense Chief's daughter won't approve the purchase.

[nev]

Could they buy F-35? An improved version maybe?

This is to replace their 3 remaining F-4 squadrons, which has become a rather urgent need.  The F-35 is 10-15 years from service (assuming it doesn't get canned in the meantime).

[GTX]

Performance-wise it's supposedly at the F-16 level, far behind the F-22, Typhoon, Rafale etc.

Based upon what?

Regards,

Greg

[Jennings]

Love the Red Arrow!  At the risk of thread hijack, someone on pprune was saying that 4 Typhoons might actually be a cheaper option than the 9 Hawks if the RAF start looking at cutting the Reds, especially if the they cut the schedule to proper air shows instead of overflying every flower show and Pizza Hut opening.

Back to your regularly scheduled whiffery...LOVE the blue Typhoons, but I'm sure someone did it in styrene a year or two back.

Apparently the Reds think model airplanes are a new income stream for them.  They effectively killed a planned large scale Hawk project with their ridiculous licensing demands...

J