Japan Chooses F-35 For Next Generation Fighter Jet
 

Congrats to Lockheed Martin!

TOKYO—Japan's Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa said Tuesday that Tokyo has selected Lockheed Martin Corp.'s F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter as its next-generation jet, capping a multiyear vetting process to upgrade its aging fleet.

The contract for the new fighter, dubbed the FX, totals 40 to 50 planes, according to Lockheed Martin, valued at an estimated $4 billion. It is Japan's most expensive fighter procurement ever and one of the world's largest military contracts this year.

The Lockheed Martin jet won the contract over two lower-cost, combat-tested aircraft—Boeing Co.'s F-18 Super Hornet and the European consortium Eurofighter GmbH's Typhoon fighter. But those planes were seen to lack the stealth capabilities of the more advanced F-35.

Washington, Japan's chief security ally, had quietly pushed the case for a U.S. jet by highlighting the importance of interoperability and the ability to share critical parts and conduct joint maintenance.

In their decision, Japanese officials cited the F-35's cutting edge technology, such as its so-called fifth-generation stealth design that provides radar-evading capability both in front of and behind the aircraft.

"We chose the F-35 based on its superior capabilities," Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa said following the decision.

Japan sees the jet's advanced technology as a way of both deterring potential aggressors such as China and Russia, and also to help foster the development of Japan's own aviation industry. A concession came in the form of partial licensed F-35 production, which is expected to be handled by a consortium of Japanese companies including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

One potential source of controversy is the F-35's checkered development history, as the yet-to-be-deployed fighter has been dogged by repeated delays and cost overruns.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...507481512.html

I hope they haven't really chosen it for its "superior stealth abilities"...

i am surprised......i see the F-35 more as an advanced fighterbomber not a primary interceptor. And i thought Japan would "need" an interceptor.

we will see what avionics it will get in the japanese service.

yeah, it's really apples and oranges, we'll see what they come out with..

It can't fly

Curious, what makes you see that as a fighter bomber instead of an interceptor?

They wouldn't buy Russia's new fighter which IMO is the worlds best or will be..f-18 SH is a great fighter but it lacks any sort of stealth capability, same goes with the Typhoon which is probably the worst out the lot apart from the armament it uses

Another question is which version of the F-35 is it? The one that hovers? The Air force one? Or the Navy type(carrier landing)?

Quite true...obviously all 3 would be tasked to do different roles primarily but I do see it as a formidable interceptor.

I wouldn't even put the Spit11a against it :))

I'd be surprised if the Russians create anything World beating, especially as India are involved. Thanks India, all those billions the UK give you in 'aid' and you spend it on Russians.

Bastards.

Not if you work for BAE SYSTEMS.

Really?
It's slow as hell, and it can't turn - but hey, in the commercial they said: "Let the missiles do the turning for you."

What they didn't say is - what happens if this trick doesn't work...


Russians had always, concerning aerodynamics, the edge over western counterparts.
They "only" sucked in Avionics and build quality - but that's something you can fix.
Btw, I was surprised the Iranians could take over a CIA drone - maybe the western electronic edge is no more. :)

If by "take over" you mean find out where it crashed, then yes, "they took it over".

Yes...really

You've been playing too many WW2 sims me thinks..

Do you think they are concerned about if it has the same turn rate as a Super Hornet?

Please

Actually....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hy%C5%A...pter_destroyer

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/...091501272.html

The japanese are planning an even bigger version of this ship. Though no offical talk about aircraft carriers this kind of ship + the F35 really makes me wonder....

Exactly, this isn't just about which aircraft will win in a dogfight it's about a massive investment and future proofing that investment.

Why would you spend that much money on a SuperHornet which is as stealthy as a brick and how much could you actually upgrade that aircraft? 5yrs? 10?

It's not just about speed and turn rate anymore, we stopped worrying about that 20years ago

True, on the one hand, however I am critical of the major argument being stealth. First, it reduces weapon loadout options quite immensly, speed still is probably the most important criteria when it comes to survivability (and THE criteria for an interceptor) and last but not least, maintance of stealth aircraft almost completly negates the effect of having a new airframe. Top that off with current stealth tech just being a gap filler, redundant within 10 years development of RADAR technology (if not already) and the japanese still might bite their behinds for their descision.

However, the F35 probably is the best current fighter for small carrier operations, so IF they build that ship their descision makes somewhat sense.

The Iranians hacked the drones GPS and reprogrammed it to land at one of their airbases when its comms link was jammed and it went into automatic go home mode. So yes, they took it over.

Video feeds from drones have been intercepted by insurgents in both Iraq and Afghanistan. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8419147.stm

Hve Japan and India decided to merge their territory ? If no thx to all the money your gov spent in education for such a poor misunderstanding and vulgar comments

Remark :
- I am not indian (can't do any yoga even trying hard ;) )
- Ok the gov money spent in education can be fairly low especially if you are from the UK :rolleyes:

80M$ for an F35 that's cheap (the famous price gap where Typhies and Raf trapped themself - a huge demo of "how to shot down your own fighter) !!! But is this amount include spares, engines and weapons ?

For those that say that the F35 is not a fighter, just remember those saying that the 16 was not a capable fighter.

Serious air force rely entirely on this GenDyn/Lockheed design since years.

Thx for posting the info btw ;)

The video feed and the the guidance connection are two entirely different animals. The vid feed is open for ease of access to ground troops and whatever friendly forces are in the area. They've known about this for years, but it is not in any way a danger to the UAV.

The guidance systems are heavily encrypted and were not hacked, and it did no land anywhere, it crashed. The Iranians were given tons of Russian jamming equipment for just this sort of situation. When they knew there was a UAV in the area they turned all their jamming equipment to max to that every signal was blocked and you couldn't even make a cell phone call if you were on top of a cell tower. The drone lost connection, and did a circling pattern while it tried to regain connection with home. When it ran out of gas it crashed (mostly intact) and now the Iranians have a massive propaganda tool and have probably already sold the parts to China and Russia so they can try and reverse engineer things.

They in no way "hacked" that drone.

@Speculum jockey
Obviously it's not only the Iranians who are subjects to propaganda. I probably knows as little as you do about the incident but: It did not happen that way!

Viking

This drone have no sensitive stealth tech (see the drone histo).

Read your post over again. . . let it sink in.

Has he ever shown you pictures of the room that they have filled with taxpayer money that they have their orgies in? (just kidding). I have an uncle who works for Honeywell Canada's Aerospace division and he's actually done a lot of UAV work with Lockheed. He laughed a hearty laugh when the Iranians claimed to have "hacked" the guidance.

Actually, I think only the Iranians know what really happened.
If the CIA lost contact at some point, there cant be any data of that period to review - unless you get hold of the drone itself.


Any news about that key-/inputlogging virus which was in the media a some time ago?
But it doesn't really matter whether you hack or jam it, the result is the loss of one of those things.



And 50years ago, they thought they dont need onboard cannons anymore.... :D

This is an Aussie evaluation, although not an official one.
http://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html

Please remember I'm not saying this aircraft is the all and be all, it's far from it.

I'm saying or giving an opinion on why it was picked out of the 3 they looked at nothing more.

This isn't about which one is the best fighter/interceptor.

I'm sure news in the near future will start to shed light on why they picked it and we can all sleep better.

That's funny, by the pictures we've seen of the captured drone it doesn't look very "crashed" to me. Maybe it crashed from an altitude of 3 meters at a speed of 8 km/h LOL!

BOT*
Hve a look here for some of the latest mod in the F35 engine integration program.

http://www.aviationweek.com/media/im...e/cutaway.html

*Bck on Topic

The drone, when it loses contact will start a circular flight pattern until it regains contact with its guidance signal. Since it's a flying wing it has excellent gliding characteristics and when it crashed it most likely skidded to a halt on a relatively flat area of land. Crashing doesn't always mean there is a Hollywood fireball at the site, especially when your aircraft is out of fuel.

As for the key logger, it wasn't a virus, but instead a portion of the code used for error checking. Nothing sinister at all.

Finally. People who are saying, "it was hacked, and then they took control and told it to land at one of their airstrips". . . . REALLY?

You think that the guidance encryption is going to be something that's easily broken? Also once it is broken whoever did it now told the UAV to land at a runway that isn't programmed into it's system, using an operating system that they have probably never seen before in their life. That's some seriously unlikely "what ifs".

The real answer is usually the simple one. They jammed, it crashed, they gloated.

Agreed
Seems to me alot of speculation is going on here..

Think it's fair to say none of us know and if we did I'd like to know how.

I suggest we get off the 'it cannot be hacked routine' though..even jamming a so called secure signal is bad enough.

As already stated looks pretty good condition to me for a drone that 'crashed'...not once have I seen any report of it being fake or that this or that is out of place

Yes, I will settle for the "nobody here really knows anything about this" option. :)

A signal being secure has nothing to do with its ability to be jammed. That's like saying you can hack a person's computer, but instead all you did was cut the power to his house.

As for "it doesn't look like it crashed" Read this.

http://ko6bb1.multiply.com/journal/i...._._._Old_news

They have been careful to not show off the underside of the UAV and it's pretty obvious from some of the pictures that one of the wings has been reattached, had putty applied, and repainted to look intact.

High Resolution Photo: http://cencio4.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/3.jpg (notice the giant seam in the wing)

It seems to me that it was a crash landing that left the unit intact.

Yea sry should of worded it differently, I understand that.

What I'm saying is being able to jam the signal is bad enough.

Yes I have seen the damage you talk about, still doesn't seem like a crash though to me..more like an attempted botched landing hence why I'm saying IMO there was a bit more involved than just a signal being jammed in the first place.

We're never know anyhow..not for a while

http://info.publicintelligence.net/U...larWarfare.pdf is an interesting read. Section 2.4.4 deals with GPS jamming that I posted about and not the comms links

A US Air Force study identified this as a potential threat. If you would prefer to believe what employees of the manufacturers who make handsome profits from these programmes say then that's up to you :)

Jamming is not hard, and if done properly is impossible to counter. This isn't representative of their abilities, only that the Russians have lent them some of their jamming hardware. Another analogy would be the guidance signal being like a conversation between two people in a language you have never heard of. What the Iranians most likely did was scream really loud next to the conversation. The didn't hear anything the two were saying, they didn't control what either of them said, all they did was drown out their conversation.

Again the damage issue:

That UAV is designed for high fuel efficiency and flight stability, two things that are important for long loitering times over its intended targets. When it's fuel load is expended that thing is going to be very light. Given it's shape, it is going to have excellent glide characteristics, and the on-board avionics are going to keep it level. As it runs out of fuel it's going to start a very controlled glide towards the ground. Maybe only one time out of 10 it might land as intact as it did, (which shows signs that a wing was severed).

Iran is very, very far behind in electronic intelligence and lacks the technical expertise and the equipment to hack a drone. This is not meant as a racial slur against them, it's just the environment in the country since the revolution has not been very conducive to training people in these matters. They are catching up, but are still very far behind.

Yea, that's exactly the way that I would program an expensive ultra secret drone spying over other nations territory.

1: If we lose connection fly in circles until reestablished.
2:If still no connection wait for fuel to run out, still flying in circles.
3:When fuel is out glide carefully to ground and try to make a good landing. NOT!

I think it would be: If lose contact fly home! If cannot go home self-destruct!

And about all the rednecks in bars claiming they "know" what happened but cannot tell: BS!
If you are cleared to get that kind of info you don't share! Not even with family or friends! PERIOD!

Viking

You do realize what that means?
If you can jam a drone you can also jam cruise missiles, smart bombs possibly even airplanes - worst case even direct where you want them to fly to.
This is the stuff James Bond movies are made of and much worse than the loss of a drone.


I think all spy equipment built during the past 60 years had this routine - but not the this new high tech gadget, odd.


Something I can confirm, my uncle worked for the BND he never spoke about his job - and we really tried hard; made him drunk etc. - not a chance.
All we could get in those years was the fact he once instructed Mujahideen on Stingers.

Vik are working at the City or in Wallstreet as a trader ?:rolleyes:

He works for me, helping to spread disinformation. :grin:

I don't believe what I hear until its officially denied! ;)

Viking

That's a false statement, the media said so