Posted on 11/14/2013 7:25:06 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Japan should reach a decision “within months” on whether to pursue a modernisation programme for its oldest Boeing/Mitsubishi F-15 combat aircraft, or replace them with a new type, a senior air force official has revealed.
Tokyo is already upgrading its youngest F-15Js to an enhanced MJ configuration and modernising its indigenous Mitsubishi F-2 fighters, and will replace its McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms with 42 Lockheed Martin F-35As from 2016.
US Department of Defense
“Beyond the horizon, planners are looking at options,” says Col Koji Imaki, head of the Japan Air Self-Defence Force’s F-35A programme office. “A plan which will go public at the end of this year should provide answers to that.”
Japan’s first two F-35As will be completed at Lockheed’s Fort Worth site in Texas, with following examples to be delivered from a final assembly and check-out facility which is now being established with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagoya. Being acquired under an F-X deal, the air force’s conventional take-off and landing aircraft will equip two combat squadrons.
Any decision to replace the service’s oldest F-15s could open the door to other bidders, potentially including defeated F-X competitors Boeing and Eurofighter, which had respectively been offering their F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and Typhoon designs.
Meanwhile, 13 of the 18 F-2 fighters and trainers that were extensively damaged during a post-earthquake tsunami in early 2011 are now being repaired, for eventual return to service. Japan developed the type from Lockheed’s F-16, and acquired 94 examples, which Imaki says had an average unit cost of $120 million. “There was a downside in cost, due to the small offtake,” he told IQPC's International Fighter conference in London on 13 November.
I always love the sound of the F-15s roaring over my house from the bases out in Kanagawa and west Tokyo bases. I always love to see them roar off in formation towards Korea and wonder what they are scrambling for.
Even a 1970s vintage F-15A can still kick the arse of just about any other fighter aircraft in Northeast Asia. If the airframes are still in sound shape, then upgrade the avionics. Japan should have no trouble with that.
I’ll take a couple off their hands! Just send them my way. On second thought I can come pick them up!
Hey, if they’re tough enough to take on Godzilla, they’re tough enough for anything.
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