Andrew Mollet/TOKYO
The Japanese Government is again devoting a sizeable amount of its annual aerospace development funding to supersonic transport airframe and powerplant research, while slashing the budget for the stalled YS-X regional aircraft study.
The supersonic transport accounts for the largest single item contained in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry's (MITI) ´9.03 billion ($67.9 million) aerospace budget for fiscal year 1998/9. The supersonic industrial consortium will get ´4.03 billion, of which ´3.07 billion will go towards work on the Hypersonic Transport Propulsion System Research (HYPR) programme.
The Science and Technology Agency is providing the National Aerospace Laboratory with a separate ´11.8 billion research budget, of which more than 21% will go on supersonic material and computational fluid dynamics work in this fiscal year. Two subscale 11m-long supersonic test vehicles are being developed to fly in 2002 and 2004.
MITI has set aside another ´3.67 billion for continued participation in international collaborative programmes, almost half of which goes towards supporting Japan Aircraft Development's (JADC) share of Boeing 777 production work. Other projects include ´1.36 billion for the International Aero Engines V2500 and ´780 million for General Electric CF34-8C development.
Funding for the moribund YS-X has shrunk to ´170 million, compared to ´380 million the previous year. JADC work on the YS-X has virtually ground to a halt and much of the effort has instead been channelled into Mitsubishi's own 90-seat study with Bombardier. Another casualty has been Japan's planned participation in the Boeing 747X growth derivative, with an allocation of just ´9 million, compared to ´560 million in 1997.
Source: Flight International
