Andrew Mollet/TOKYO
The Japan Defence Agency (JDA) is aiming to secure funding to develop a long-range, medium-sized transport aircraft to replace the Air Self Defence Force's Kawasaki C-1. It hopes to seek budgetary allocations from fiscal year 2000 for the project.
The JDA declines to say how much it is looking for in next year's budget, although it estimates that the total development costs will be "-more than ´100 billion [$862 million]". The agency says it is aiming for an in-service date within the next 10 years.
The development of the long-range aircraft is aimed partly at supporting the increased number and scope of United Nations-led peacekeeping operations involving Japanese forces.
JDA chief Hosei Norota recently added urgency to the JDA's consideration of long-range transport aircraft after it was revealed that Japanese Air Self-Defence Force Lockheed Martin C-130 transports on a recent relief mission to Honduras took four days to reach the hurricane devastated Central American state.
Although the range specifications for the new aircraft have yet to be set, a JDA source says the aircraft would at least have to be able to fly to any location in South-East Asia without refuelling. "We're looking at an aircraft with a range of somewhere between 5,000km [2,700nm] and 10,000km."
Budgetary constraints mean that the development of the new transport aircraft will almost certainly mean a delay in the acquisition of inflight refuelling tanker. "Although the five-year mid-term defence plan, which ends in fiscal year 2001, calls for the acquisition of such an aircraft, it seems unlikely that we will get sufficient funding to pay for both in the next couple of years, and the priority lies with the transport aircraft project," says the agency source.
Source: Flight International
