Japan

Defence looks toward Japan for help. Two high risk projects for Australia: the F-35 and submarines.

At least Japan had some sense and went with a U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) deal with the Just So Failed. Not that this will help defend their, or our, skies much.

With the DMO having their grubby hands involved wrangling the rent-seekers, how can it go wrong?

Labor has shown their gross incompetence dealing with Defence. The return of the other party next year offers no solutions either. Both think money is the problem and, other than platitude and more bad decisions, offer no clear way of removing the dead wood, or improving management competence.

Samurai faith

SLD is always worth a chuckle when they try to sell the troubled F-35. Here, they use Japan's latest defense white paper as an example of sound F-35 faith.

In other words, the new fighter aircraft needs to be able to effectively deal with high-performance fighters, as well as being equipped with sufficient performance to deal with cruise missiles and the ability to carry out its operations effectively in network-centric-warfare that has those functions as constituent elements.

Well, good luck. Interesting since communist appeasement types in the Bush administration refused to sell the F-22 to Japan.

I wonder if these 2010 Lockheed Martin claims (similar to claims held for years) will hold true?

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Quantum leap like the TV show (marketing)? Or quantum leap like physics (and what the engineers say is real)?

Article, less flawed than sub plan or defence white paper

I know I have my bad days but I don't get paid to write.

This submarine story doesn't even end with a proper sentence.

Until the Soryu became theoretically available, off-the-shelf submarines included only German, French and Spanish designs of about 2000 tonnes.

It is almost as bad a sin as referring to the failed-within-one second of launch 2009 Defence White Paper as if it had value.

And yes the article fails to mention that Defence/DMO/RAN do not have the skill to sustain and crew 6 subs let alone 12.

Influence of Japan F-35 selection team revealed

Here are the significant amounts of sound technical influence used by Japan to select the F-35.

Over-hyping the Japan F-35 decision

Many news sources are over-hyping the Japan F-35 decision. Copy...paste...publish.

While this is one of the better examples, a lot of the unnamed Defence source quotes in the beginning of the piece have little merit.

For instance, Japan fields a fighter aircraft different than anyone else.

The Joint Strike Fighter partner nations were supposed to be good for over 700 F-35s. This has not happened because of huge technical delay and various governments not handing over money at an earlier date.

That includes Australia.

The idea that Australia will hand over the money in 2012 for 14 F-35s is not a done deal. Defence Minister Smith is not happy with the program. He very well could recommend pointing that money at Nelson v2 for more Super Hornets.

Japan is both dumb and smart. Dumb in picking a virtual fighter aircraft with severe problems. Smart in being independent enough to never get involved in something like the Joint Strike Fighter Partner Nation Ponzi Scheme.

Because Japan is an FMS deal with strong home-political considerations--along with having some existing home aerospace industry--they will get more value out of the home workshare. Also, the potential Korean F-35 FMS deal will offer better home-workshare agreements. A Korean F-35 FMS deal could look something like how KF-16s were done.

Locally, the F-16s will be designated KF-16. Under the terms of the agreement, Lockheed Fort Worth will manufacture the first 12 aircraft, the next 36 will be delivered in kit form and assembled in South Korea, whereas the last 72 will be built in South Korea by Samsung Aerospace. This makes South Korea the 5th country to produce the F-16, after the US, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. Major subcontractors are Daewoo and Korean Air. The expertise gained in the program will be put to use in the Korean Trainer Experiment program. South Korea took delivery of the first of these (LMTAS-built) aircraft on December 2nd, 1994.

That is a lot of missing "best value" for the JSF Partner Nations holding out their hands for work.

Note: Israel is different given they receive $3B in U.S. foreign aid credits every year.

Politicians in JSF Partner Nations should be wondering why their country is getting hosed.

Each JSF Partner Nation (depending on their level of participation) gets a fee paid back to them for each F-35 FMS sale. For example, if the fee for each Japanese F-35 is $6M, the Partner Nations would get (assuming 42 jets) $252M split up between them based on their participation level. For instance, the UK is a level 1 JSF Partner and would get a higher percentage of the kick-back than anyone else. While it is not chicken feed, it isn't much either because there is so little work being done with JSF Partner Nation home workshare because of all the missing orders thus far.

The Japan deal is helpful to JSF Partner nation's best value industry (and U.S. industry) in the way that a half-box of band-aids are helpful to a patient with multiple arterial bleeding wounds.

The math backing up the unnamed Defence official quoted in the article is really that bad.

Over-hyping Japan's announcement isn't going to change the fact that there are a lot of technical hurdles to get over with the F-35. That and the original business plan--the heart of JSF affordability; concurrency--is dead.

And, the F-35 will be obsolete vs. the threat over its alleged service lifetime.

Japan picks a flying question mark

Japan has selected the F-35 to replace their F-4 Phantoms.

Fortunately for them it is an FMS deal with offsets and work-share and not the smoke and mirrors for the unlucky stiffs that are Joint Strike Fighter Partner nations.

The package includes a final assembly and checkout (FACO) facility in Japan as well as work there to build components – potentially including the wings or center fuselage – and subcomponents. Specific details on the value of this FACO facility were not disclosed.

Production "capacity" will be available because JSF Partner Nations have not put in orders of any significant number.

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and IHT Corp will help with final assembly of the F-35 along with other components.

Lockheed officials declined to identify a potential contract value, but some analysts estimate it to be worth $8 billion. The contract for the first four jets, likely to be used for training, is expected in Japan’s fiscal 2012, beginning in April.

I guess Japan didn't learn much from the F-2.

There is a lot of work to do to fix up significant problems with the F-35. It will be interesting to see how Japan deals with all of this.

And, it is unlikely the F-35 will be useful against emerging threats in the Pacific Rim over its alleged lifetime.

Maybe Japan can bring some credibility back into the F-35 program.

Others have tried, without success.

Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)

A look at three choices for Japan.

Update: LOL source of 3rd video removed. It showed an F-35 rolling (and falling) about like one would expect from an F-105. And another comparison:

Eurofighter Typhoon analysis by APA

Some of this is a bit dated (as it doesn't include the Block II variant of the Super Hornet) but it is a good analysis to put things into perspective since the Typhoon has been mentioned re: Japan.

The following quote points back to the original intent of creating the Typhoon.

"The strength of the Typhoon is its very modern and comprehensive avionic package, especially that in the RAF variant, and its excellent agility when operated around its optimum combat radius of about 300 NMI (a figure to be found in older Eurofighter literature, which has since disappeared with the export drive to compete against the bigger F-15 and F-22)."

Unless Japan can conjure up the F-22, the Typhoon is still the best of the 3 options facing Japan for its F-4 replacement.

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U.S. defense projects on Guam cut short by Japanese earthquake

Brilliant catch by Galrahn.

The Japanese earthquake has delayed their funding of U.S. defense projects on Guam.