Japan unveils First Stealth Fighter Jet.....

It is still in the experimental stage, they may refine the design before going into full production.

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I would trust safety device built by chinese even less...

 

That thing looks like someone took an F/A-18 and just adjusted some of the lines of the aircraft to come out with that. Sorta like how it would come out of someone not so skilled at drawing were asked to draw an A-D model of the F/A-18. That's the first thought I had when I saw it from that camera angle in the OP.

 

The Japanese always think small post WW ll, always miniaturizing things.

America invented the transistor but didn't know what to do with it. The Japanese took the transistor and created a small little battery powered radio that you could carry in your pocket.

Remember the first imported Japanese cars ? They were so small, most American men had a problem entering and exiting from them. And if you were over six feet tall, you had to cut a hole in the roof for your head.

 

They live on islands, personal space is finite. Miniaturization is a nessesity.

 

One also has to look at the history of that aircraft, and the precious one.

The F-1 was a completely Japanese designed and built aircraft, and was in service from 1978-2006.



They were good aircraft, but only 77 of them were made. When the airframes started to wear out, it was decided to go with a licensed American aircraft because of the affordability through larger numbers produced. But they have also made a great many changes. Much larger wings and control assemblies, greatly modernized avionics, composite materials to reduce RADAR signature, and a scanning aray RADAR system.

It is based on the F-16, but the F-2 is not an F-16. And Japan has also developed their own airlift aircraft, in the C-1 and C-2. For most of their aircraft they have been going the route of licensing American models, because it lets them save a lot of money, both in R&D as well as a supply of replacement parts.

And they are buying the F-35, they are planning on acquiring 42 F-35As.

 

Not quite true.

American companies jumped on the transistor right away for portable radios. This was primarily because it let them dump the old tubes and go with something more reliable. However, the transistor counts were much higher, as were the radios. This was a classic "Portable Radio", the Zenith Trans-Oceanic:



Transistor count normally between 9 and 15 for that era.

But the first "Pocket Transistor Radios" were made by 2 American companies, the most well known is Texas Instruments. The Regency TR-1 was truely pocket sized, and reduced transistor count to 4. This was primarily because it only had AM band.



But then the Japanese came along with the Sony TR-55 and TR-63. Through "Muntzing" they reduced component counts even more and made them even more affordable.



But the "pocket transistor radio" was invented in the US. But we were not the primary market, that was International sales. Radio sales in the US were still primarily in the big Living Room sized units.



These had converted to transistors, but had better speakers, more power, larger antennas, and a lot of other improvements that came with the higher transistor count.

 

Unless you found yourself in Vietnam. The small pocket transistor radio was as common as P-38 C-Rat can openers.

-> http://www.vietnamgear.com/kit.aspx?kit=327

You would wrap electrical tape all around the small transistor radio to protect it from the elements. Back during the era, small transistor radios weren't so water resistant.

 

A prototype airframe (Avro Arrow) and and a small-scale production(F-1) just don't fall in "growing industry" category. The problem here is keepeng the production of a competitive product for affordable price. Realistically it was hard to compete with USA and USSR in technological sphere and if you did you'll probably fail to keep the price tag low enough. Eventually even GB stuck with American products with only France and, surprisingly, Sweden left with their own aircraft industry.
Dropping Arrow was a logical decision, taking into account Canada was in the US camp by the moment. Japan "preserved" it's "industry", but what for? Keeping up it's ego by building almost-F-16 at 4x the pricetag?

 

Not to get completely off the primary topic, but this would make for an interesting thread. Much of war, whether you're in combat or combat support consists of downtime. What were the prevalent tools around for each era of warfighter to entertain themselves during downtime. You mention in the case of the war in Vietnam, the small portable transistor radio was prevalent. In my era, it was the Sony Walkman, I would listen to the BBC radio broadcasts when I got deployed for Desert Shield/Storm over a Walkman. In the early part of OEF and OIF, they had Ipods. I don't know what is prevalent these days in terms of portable entertainment, probably smartphones when they're allowed.

Anyway. apologies for getting so far off course...I'll digress no further.

 

Meh. Looks like a gen 4 and gen 5 had a bastard with a lazy eye.

Anyone know the specs? Can't find anything online yet.

Is this supposed to be land based?

 

That's what I have been wondering will they have a carrier based model ?

Japan has launched their first post WW ll aircraft carrier. For political reasons and not wanting to cause the chi-coms to spill their noodles, Japan has classified the carrier as a "helicopter destroyer" but it sure looks like an aircraft carrier to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyūga-class_helicopter_destroyer

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/07...ter-destroyer-an-aircraft-carrier-china-navy/

The Hyuga class "helicopter destroyer" sure looks like a candidate for deploying the F-35 B on but Japan has ordered the USAF land based F-35 A's.

But new info keeps showing up on the web today. From 8 hours ago.

Popular Mechanics:

 

The government of Canada was threaten to stop the production of the arrow... And so were the Japanese. Neither were made to compete with anybody, just like Saab aren't meant to compete with the US war machine. It's about being self sufficient.

 

Hyūga-class might be able to support VTOL one day, according to your wiki link. But that aircraft is not VTOL, and the one shown in the pics seems to have smaller wheels/undercarriage which would suggest its not. It does have large flaps/control surfaces though.

A few years back the Chinese came out with an F35 ripoff with twin engines, that would be some fierce competition in combat.

With China and North Korea getting bold and upsizing-I am hoping the Japanese eventually go with a full 5th gen fighter, and judging by looks that aircraft seems like a transition design-like someone put thrust vectoring on a T-38.

 

What kind of color scheme is that on that T-38 ?

The tail code says the aircraft is based at Randolph AFB, TX. -> http://www.military.cz/usa/air/air_accessories/usaf_tail_cod/usaf_tail_cod.htm

 

The 560th Flying Training Squadron to be exact. The two-tone glossy-gray paint scheme was approved for the T/AT-38 fleet around 1998.

 

Not sure but I got the photo from wikipedia and it did indeed say it was based out of Randolph.

When I was a kid, I used to see those T-38's at Sioux City.

 

I did notice it was a glossy paint when I saw the reflection of "U.S. AIR FORCE" on the left wing.

 

I bet Herkdriver knows all of the Air Force tail codes. I have to look them up.

The Navy and Marine tail codes work differently, Navy tail codes identify the carrier air wing the aircraft is assigned too while Marine tail codes identify which squadron the aircraft is with.

 

I was trying to make sense of that. On the list you posted I didn't see anything from March ARB, maybe because its the reserve?

 

Neither can I find a tail code for March. Maybe reserve bases don't get a tail code ?

Maybe Herkdriver will come around and explain this.

 

Maybe at one time I knew them all, not so much now. Use it or lose it as they say.

As an example let's take at look at the tail code markings of the T-38 photo US Conservative posted. I took the liberty of cropping it, but it's the same aircraft in the original picture.



Two-letter Base Code- RA = 12 FTW Randolph AFB, Texas (AETC)
FTW stands for Flight Training Wing, and the 560th FTS or Flight Training Squadron is attached to the 12th FTW.

Serial Number - 66 389 = First two digits are the year the aircraft was ordered; in this case 1966. the remaining numbers are the last digits of the complete contractual serial number. The full serial is actually 66-4389.

With this information form the tail code marking, we can determine this is 66-4389, a Northrop T-38A Talon, C/N: T.6020. C/N is the construction number.

On a side note, AMC aircraft (Air Mobility Command) don't use two letter id codes. They have the name of the base written inside the tail flash and use a different standard to identify the aircraft serial number.

 

I was looking for a tail code for March Air Reserve base, formerly March AFB. Today the 452 nd Air Mobility Wing is based at March. on Wiki is see "Tail Code Gold/Red tail stripe "March" in white"

Looking at photos of KC-135's and C-17's that are based at March today I see the red and gold tail stripe with MARCH. -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/452d_Air_Mobility_Wing

So AMC aircraft don't have a two letter tail code.

Thanks for the info Herkdriver.

 

While these ships can indeed carry VSTOL aircraft, Japan does not have any in their inventory.

And the following Izumo class is even biggger.



A lot of the reason for the upgrade is that they are expected to acquire some OV-22 aircraft. But they are not attempting to acquire any Harrier or Lightning II aicraft. But China is concerned that in the future they might, making the newer ships real aircraft carriers.

 

Any reason why Taiwan, Japan, and Korea can't work together to develop some carriers capable of STOL/VTOL? Perhaps a joint 5 gen fighter?

Too much dough?

 

Pretty much.

It takes a lot of money to develop a 5th generation fighter, as well as resources and time. And it simply does not make sense to do so unless you either have the spare resources to invest in it, or the potential to export them to produce the numbers to make the program worth while.

That is why it is generally the "big 3" (NATO-Russia-China) are the only nations that have seriously been trying to do so.

There are some other countries trying however, such as Japan just announcing their first prototype. India is trying to build their own, based off of the Sukhoi PAK FA. Turkey has been working on their own, but it is a decade away at the soonest. Iran claims to have one, but nobody takes their single mock-up seriously.