Japan is likely to delay a request for proposals for its F-X competition to 2009, with the ministry of defence instead seeking funds to accelerate an upgrade programme for its existing Boeing F-15Js.
A tender to replace the Japan Air Self-Defence Force's McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms was due in 2007, but it was pushed to 2008 as Tokyo unsuccessfully lobbied the USA to release information on the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
Both the Pentagon and Lockheed are bound by the Obey Amendment, which bars the export of the F-22's sensitive stealth technology. The issue is not a priority for US politicians, who are concentrating on November's presidential and congressional elections.
While Japan continues to press for information on the F-22, industry sources say that there is a grudging acceptance in Tokyo that it is unlikely to succeed. Early next year it is likely to turn its attention to other fighters and issue an RFP that excludes the F-22.
The favourite would then be the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but the first deliveries are not until 2012 and there are fears that this could slip. It is also unclear where Japan would fit in the delivery schedule, given that the programme's original partners will have first priority. The earliest, estimates a Tokyo-based source, is around 2016 and that is off Japan's F-X delivery timetable by around three years.
If Japan is willing to wait, it could then buy around 40 different fighters as an interim measure. It has received information on the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, although Boeing's offering of either the latest version of the F-15 or the F/A-18E/F and the company's long-standing relationship with Japan would make it a favourite.
The more likely choice is an F-15 that "combines the attributes of those ordered by Singapore and South Korea, with a little bit extra thrown in", says one Tokyo-based industry source. "Given that Japan already operates F-15s, albeit the older versions, it would make sense to induct a platform that is already familiar to the JASDF."
With the earliest delivery of a new fighter likely to be in 2012, Japan's MoD wants to prevent a drop in its operational capability by upgrading more of its F-15Js. It has so far upgraded just over 20 with new radars, but has more than 200 F-15s, and it will seek funding to accelerate the programme when it submits its fiscal year 2009 budget proposal to the ministry of finance at the end of August.
Source: Flight International
