"Japan Prepares Designs For Its Next Fighter" Topic

"Flying far is more important than flying fast, Japanese fighter technologists have found in studies aimed at defining their country's next combat aircraft. Looking for ways for their air force to fight outnumbered, researchers are also emphasizing that Japan's next fighter should share targeting data, carry a big internal load of large, high-performance missiles and be able to guide them while retreating.

The results of this work may be committed to full-scale development within four years. Japan is holding open the possibility of a joint international program, which the finance ministry would surely prefer, but the defense ministry looks wary of being trapped in a late-running cooperative effort over which it has little control. Specifically national requirements such as the preference for range over speed may also nudge Japan toward going it alone.

Engineers from the defense ministry's Technical Research & Development Institute (TRDI) and IHI Corp. are well into preliminary development of a surprisingly powerful turbofan for the twin-engine fighter, which would enter service around 2030 as the F-3. TRDI is also handling the studies into the airframe, probably with strong engineering support from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which would build the airframe, and Mitsubishi Electric, the country's dominant military electronic systems supplier…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Range over speed – something tells me this is a ground attack platform of the variety the Japanese have not fielded due to constitutional and cultural restraints.

Indeed they can have both range and speed if they desire – Russians, Americans and Chinese are all doing that with PAK FA, F-22 and J-20.

Speed is important in A2A for responsiveness and especially critical time to intercept (ie catching an opponent).

If the Japanese are limiting speed then that indicates that A2A is not major focus.

The fact that it would replace Anti-Shipping tasked F-2s (developed from F-16) and not air defence tasked F-15s also indicates this.

But long range stealth seems to indicate offensive operations not defensive ones.

A production run of 90 airframes or less would be horricially expensive just like F-2 was horrifically expensive. But then Japan loves to throw money around inefficiently when it comes to defence.

Japan is rather challenged on their defense spending because of the Article 9 (and some related laws regarding selling arms abroad).

Basically, no military vehicle (plane, truck, track, or ship) with Japanese built components can be sold abroad.

They're changing those laws – e.g. potential sale of submarines to Australia.