looks like its probable that japan will go f-35

Japan looks to ‘off-the-shelf’ JSF purchase as chance to join programme fades

By Jon Grevatt

13 August 2010

Japan would be prepared to wait for an opportunity to procure the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter “off the shelf” but joint development of the aircraft is not being considered as a feasible option, a senior official in the Japanese Ministry of Defence (MoD) has told Jane’s .

The Lockheed Martin F-35 is considered one of the leading contenders to be selected by Tokyo to meet the delayed Japanese Air Self-Defense Force requirement for a next-generation F-X fighter aircraft. Another leading candidate is thought to be the Eurofighter Typhoon.

The official indicated that continuing delays in selecting an F-X platform have impeded on Japan’s chances of entering the F-35 development phase, although a decision to procure Typhoon would still enable joint production.

“I think it is too late for Japanese industries to participate in the development phase of the F-35,” he said on 10 August, “so such a purchase would be more likely to be off the shelf with modifications of the Joint Strike Fighter for the Japanese environment.

“Companies like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries [MHI] could be involved in this programme, but as far as I know we are not discussing such an option [joint development of the JSF] at the moment.”

He added: “The strategy adopted depends on the model selected. In the case of the Eurofighter they are very open to joint production with Japanese industries but in the case of the F-35 an off-the-shelf purchase is more probable.”

234 of 727 words
Copyright © IHS (Global) Limited, 2010

all bets are off, there will be a new president who will decide FX 3
PAK fa sound nice

Jackjack,

I’ve just put three sources who are directly refering to the technical evaluation (look at on the previous page at the end). That is very funded. Afterward you can believe indian point on gripen’s radar is just a coincidence.

As for Rafale AESA radar it is much more than a simple antenna change.
For the Typhoon they kept the original processing power.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=86497&page=3
I’ve just read the Air&cosmos n°2150 (5 december) which deals with AESA radars.

Of course there is an article about the RBE2 AESA.

Some facts from an interview with Gérard Christmann, Thales vice president in charge of Electronic Warfare solutions.

-The searched volume is increased by a factor 3 to 4 against the PESA RBE2
-tracking range is increased by 30% to 50%
-The RBE2 AESA is very similar to the APG-79 in terms of technology and maturity.
-The power processing has been dramatically increased with 4 new calculators.
-Power supply has an average power of 10kW. Which is an increase with previous PESA RBE2.
-The AESA RBE2 will allow sub-metric SAR images.
-The ability to jamm or transmit datas thanks to this new radar is closely considered but not funded for the moment.
-First AESA rafale should be delivered at the very beginning of 2011 (from the current batch). It will also equip the next batch of rafale which is expected to be ordered soon: beginning of 2009 for 60 airframes.
-The Swiss were able to see the gain of performance of this new radar as they could compare to the PESA RBE2. This evaluation of the AESA antenna by the swiss was a success.
-4 radar prototypes are used for trials-1 or 2 will be affected for exports trials. one is tested on the B301 an the other one is tested on the mirage 2000 B501 from the CEV.
-final software validation is expected for the first quarter of year 2010.
-This radar could be licensed in India or Brazil.
-Full ToT is possible.

I forgot : the french government will garanty that a minimum of 11 RBE2 AESA radars will be produced each year for the next batch.

got a link to the thales media release ? or you could tell me why the technology is like the apg79, as it is more like russian tech

why produce 11 radars a year when you are only building 2-3 planes a year for the next few years and then are going to stop production of the rafale for france for 2 years ?
you will have them just piled up in the corner going rusty

as i said it is simply a matter of putting an aesa antenna on the old backend

Designed from the outset to
deploy an electronically scanned
radar, the Rafale is equipped
with the RBE2 radar from Thales.
In production since 1997,
the upgrade to the active antenna
simply involves replacing the tube
transmitter and passive electronic
scanning antenna with active modules.
This operation is independent
of other functional developments
underway. An active module is a
transmitter/receiver based on
solid-state technologies
(gallium arsenide semiconductors).

arthuro, you arent based in fact and your constant put down of gripen radar is unfounded
rafale simple put an aesa antenna on their existing backend, lets not get too excited about it and there are no real development of the backend, its simple to get an aesa fielded

ok thanks, so that was it, as i said, i did recall something about an earlier delivery

sorry, i left A out of this post, see my post #304 above where i said A
you will need to google what burbage say the b/c will be, i cant recall seeing it, the B i recall is your next test plane at $129m. my guess is it will be aound 80m usd or 20% dearer than the A as per 2002 yr $ full production projections here
http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/israel-f-35-sale-might-drive-down-export-prices-21276/

LRIP 4 is well below
http://defensenews.com/blogs/farnborough/2010/07/20/burbage-f-35-lrip-4-talks-near-conclusion/
Burbage admitted July 19 that the negotiations have taken longer than expected, and said that was because the Pentagon is driving home a very aggressive price point for the planes. Lockheed officials have said that the Pentagon’s initial offer for the jets was up to 40 percent below December 2009 cost estimates by the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office one of which predicted the airplanes will cost roughly $76 million apiece.

Burbage hammered home the company line that the negotiations will result in a price tag for the LRIP 4 jets that is more than 20 percent cheaper than the CAPE estimates.

This tranche of jets, known as Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) Lot 4, is seen by many as a critical moment for the embattled program since it will be the very first fixed price contract for JSF and it will provide a solid price tag for a large amount of the jets. Until now, the Pentagon has been relying on data from older fighter programs to predict the costs of the JSF.

might be best to wait for the real engine in the production plane, instead of this demo