In what could be a major development, Japan may have one of the most lethal fighter jet
in near future through the F 3 program.
Japan’s F-3 program is aimed at developing an indigenous 5th generation fighter.
The country spent several years working on a domestic technology demonstrator, named
X-2 Shinshin, but concluded it would be too expensive to develop alone.
Despite being considered as a technological superpower, Japan’s aerospace industry lags
behind US in many area.
This includes avionics, systems integration, networking, and especially stealth.
Japan could eventually develop all of these indigenously, but will result in huge expense
and delay.
Japan is now asking for help from abroad.
The idea is to cut time and resources required to develop the fighter and major defense manufactures
are answering the call.
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes how Japan may have American Northrop Grumman’s
YF-23 Black Widow II in its air-force?
Lets get started.
Japan’s fleet of fighter jets is very important for country’s defense.
Japan fields a force of more than 200 F-15J fighters.
This is the largest F-15 fleet outside of the U.S. Air Force.
But F 15 is relatively old fighter and some of them in Japan’s fleet is almost 40 years
old.
Japan wanted to replace F-15s with F-22 Raptors but couldn’t get them, as an American law
meant to protect the F 22’s secret prevents it from being exported even to an ally.
It is getting multirole F 35 Lightning II from US but currently has no option for air
superiority jet.
Japan has been very conscious of the increasing Chinese assertiveness and belligerency.
It is facing dramatically more aggressive and militarily powerful China.
Japan’s air force had to dispatch its fighter jets 571 times to intercept Chinese military
aircraft approaching or intruding Japanese airspace.
China’s Chengdu J-10, which has some stealth capability, has been in service for some time now.
In September 2017, the Chengdu J-20 officially entered military service with PLAAF, becoming
the third operational fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft in the world, and the first
in Asia.
Japan needs an advanced aircraft that can offset the numerical advantages China’s
air force and make it vey expensive for China to launch a strike against Japan.
There is now increased consensus is U.S about providing Japan with the most sophisticated techs.
Lockheed Martin has already offered to develop a hybrid of F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter II, to know more check the video on above card.
Now Northrop Grumman has jumped in the fray and could potential offer an updated version
of YF-23 Black Widow.
Viewers may note that Lockheed’s YF-22 & Northrop’s YF-23, Northrop Grumman went head-to-head
back in the early 1990s during the Advanced Tactical Fighter competition.
YF-22 was declared the winner and was eventually named the F-22 Raptor.
U.S. defense giant Northrop Grumman said it is “very interested” in Japan’s F-3
program to build the nation a new fighter jet.
The scenarios could replicate the situation when it competed against Lockheed Martin.
Northrop Grumman’ YF 23 lost to Lockheed’s YF 22 by a whisker but experts tout it as
being more stealthy than F 22 Raptor.
The main reason for Lockheed’s win was the better maneuverability of YF 22.
Northrop is in the forefront of technology.
It is the manufacturer of B 2 Spirit and is currently developing RQ-4 Global Hawk and
next generation bomber B-21 Raider.
Northrop Grumman has lot of state of art technologies in different aspects of aircrafts including
in avionics , high end networking and stealth.
If Northrop could offer the YF-23 design with updated hardware, there is good chance that
the aircraft could use Japanese engine which was developed for Mitsubishi X-2 Shinshin.
The aircraft could be a master piece if the program is handle effeciently.