Japanese Stealth Fighter Announced as 'Return of the Zero'

reporter writes "According to a news article by the Associated Press, Tokyo has begun developing an indigenous stealth jet fighter that will be deployed in 2016. Mitsubishi, the prime contractor, has already developed a full-scale model, of which several pictures have been accidentally leaked to the press. The model is named 'Mitsubishi ATD-X"'. A laboratory of the French government has evaluated the "stealthy-ness" of ATD-X, and given it a high rating. Will ATD-X achieve air superiority over the F-22, which Washington refuses to sell to Tokyo?"

Comments

Tech issues and socio-political issues.

[BWJones]

Well, given that the F-22 has made more than one appearance in Japan, I am certain the Japanese government is interested. However, this raises more than a few issues, specifically related to technology and sociopolitical issues as well. The JDAF (Japanese Defense Air Force) has been so named as it has been a Japanese Constitutional issue that their armed forces are for defense only and not aggression. The interesting thing about stealth technology however, is that it is almost exclusively used for aggression rather than defense if you play your strategy according to tradition.

I got a quick tour of the F-22, but no pictures allowed of the F-22 during my last visit up to Hill AFB and the F-22 is making the rounds and is being explored for possible basing in other countries, but there are technology sales issues with the aircraft as it will be almost impossible to strip the sensitive technologies out of the aircraft and make it "saleable".

Re:Tech issues and socio-political issues.

[meringuoid]

I'm surprised they don't do more with their Military. I think they are counting on their somewhat innocent attitude to bring the US to the rescue should they be forced into a war.

I think the US rather insisted on that. Pacifism got written into the Japanese constitution after the war, more or less at Washington's dictate. They're not allowed to spend more than some tiny percentage of GNP on defence, either.

Re:Tech issues and socio-political issues.

[MightyMartian]

I'm not going to blame the US for the disarmament of Japan. It was a necessary thing to do in 1945. It was also necessary to make all the reforms, including a constitution which enshrined the peaceful nature of the Japanese military.

But that was 62 years ago, and in the meantime, Japan has become one of the US's most important allies and economic partners, and with the rise of China and the re-rise of Russia, I think it's important to consider that Japan may want to modify the nature of their military, and that maybe it's really in our best interests to allow them to do this.

The Japan of today is not the Japan of the 1930s, and even if it were, it simply is no longer in any position to do much about it.

Or maybe just a mockup?

[dgr73]

While the external frame is very important to any airplane, stealthy or not, what matters is what goes into the plane and what materials is it built out of. You can't just build a life-size carbon fiber chassis and call it a stealth plane if you put a whole heap of non-stealthy stuff inside.

Stealth is a defensive technology anyway, meaning your fighter is stealthy only until a single weakness is found. You can't really say at this point if this is a project that will succeed. Or if it's even meant to succeed. I mean, would you put it past the Japanese to force the US hand to sell them to F22 by threatening to build a competitor which they might sell to god-knows-who to finance the development. the previous sentence is an artistic liberty I took to get my point across, i'm sure the F22 is more advanced than the F15 in areas other than stealth.