I think Typhoon’s chances are much better than most folks here are willing to grant. F-35 doesn’t do anything for Japanese industry (and is a questionable match for Japan’s requirements in the first place) and whilst Super Hornet has some fine qualities I don’t think it can compete at all with Typhoon under the A2A-centric performance-based criteria Japan is likely to employ, and the criteria Super Hornet fares best on – price and maturity – are of little significance to Japan. Japanese industry would love to get its hands on a platform with as much unexplored potential as Typhoon and a relatively free hand to explore it.
So it’s a question of capability vs. politics, however consider that JMSDF ordered Merlin helicopters from Europe (to replace existing American platforms) back in 2003. Also consider that the DPJ is now in power. When the DPJ wrested Japan from a half-century of LDP rule, one of their election platforms was to renegotiate the relationship between Japan and the US, i.e. to assert Japanese independence. However the DPJ has found it difficult to translate this policy into practice given Japan’s national lethargy coupled with the evolving strategic environment (i.e. China) and most recently of course the earthquake. Former Prime Minister Hatoyama resigned last year in large part due to his government’s failure to secure America’s eviction from Okinawa as he promised the electorate. So the DPJ – if it remains in power – is going to be looking for opportunities to assert Japan’s independence from the US without actually compromising the relationship and thereby Japanese security. A Typhoon buy would fit the bill perfectly. America might prefer that Japan buy American, but they’re hardly going to withdraw from the Pacific over it, and Japan’s excuse – “we wanted to buy American but you wouldn’t let us” – is a pretty good one.
Regarding ATD-X, I’m not sure how many here are keeping in mind that the research effort of which this demonstrator is a part is meant to translate into an operational platform only in the 2025-2030 timeframe. The recent earthquake will not significantly affect these plans. Short-term funding delays pushing the program back a year or two perhaps.
Every jump in generational capability is causally marked…
… by whom?
The list of characteristics you’ve outlined is a good one – even if many of them are also possessed by 4th-gen aircraft – but at the end of the day the conceptual framework of aircraft generations is one that exists entirely in the mind. Having no objective existence, the framework is bent to serve the needs of whoever is applying it. We have already seen how Lockheed Martin retroactively ditched supercruise from the list of 5th-gen characteristics so as to be able to classify F-35 as a 5th-gen aircraft.
ATD-X (Japan) and F/A-XX (US) are the two fighter programs we know of intended to be fielded post 2025, i.e. over a generation after the F-22 entered service and it is likely that both – as products that can reasonably be assumed to represent the state of the art at service entry date – will be referred to as 6th gen by their manufacturers on that basis alone.
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