Japan Could Be Offered 40 F-22s

The JASDF would be offered 40 export F-22 Raptors, but at a hefty price tag of $290 million.

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A letter from Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to Japan's ambassador in Washington lists an estimated average unit cost of $290 million per aircraft for a theoretical export sale of 40 F-22 Raptors.

Both Inouye and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, and other lawmakers in both chambers are pushing both in public and behind the scenes to allow export of the stealthy, fifth-generation fighter.

yup, they give us Nintendo, Sony, Nissan, and Toyota, and we give then 40 F-22 Raptors. Doesn't sound like a bad deal to me

I thought Japan could only have a self defense force. I guess they will have to modify the weapon load to only have defensive measures, no long range stuff.
Either way, the super powers still have f-34's.

Not into weapons but 22 is a lower number than 34 so we
still win.
This is what we do best since the takeover.
Its probably better than some of the peacenick or other world
monitoring and suppression ideas as mostly there has been
a fairly easy progression to the present situation.

reply to post by LeTan

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I think in light of recent events and their current position in the world they are completely revising there military ethos. They have huge reserves of nuclear materials that can be weaponised very quickly indeed.

And to be fair to the Japanese they have been very good world citizens ever since that pesky little war 64 or 65 years ago. They are in a very important geographical position.

And those F-22's are gonna make anything Kim's got look like the Hindenburg

reply to post by Now_Then

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Kim's probably got a few su-35's and 37's. I think the two planes are about evenly matched, electronics aside. But I agree, Japan has been a really good world citizen, but in this day and age, there's always more than meets the eye.

Wasn't that a self imposed rule from the Japanese parliament though? there have been a few rumblings lately that the Japanese may start to develop a more offensive force since NK have started to fire more missiles in their direction.

It is highly unlikely tha tthe Su-35 has been released to the North Koreans. It has been offered but not exported. The -37 variant had only two prototypes built and is unlikely to be in NK's order of battle as well.

As far as the Su-35 or even the Su35BM being a match for the Raptor, that is highly unlikely to be a match for a Raptor. Given the advantage in detection, stealth, and avionics the Raptor simply outclasses the latest Russian designs. Add to that the training of your average NK pilot and its the Marianas Turkey Shoot II

For your viewing enjoyment

YouTube Link

reply to post by TeslaandLyne

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Are you guys refering to the F-35 Lightning II? There is no F-34 that we know of.

rofl songun. Great points and video, thanks. I didn't know the raptor was so superior to the sukhoi designs.

reply to post by FredT

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Ah yeah, the F-35, formerly known as the JSF.

reply to post by LeTan

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In terms of close in manuvers the SU may actually have the edge but only by a hair. Both have vectored thrust and the Su's is 3-D versus 2D for the Raptor.

Here is a good primer on the Airframe
www.ausairpower.net...

and the Flanker
www.ausairpower.net...

Now the F/A-18 E or the F-35 versus the Flanker, Id put my money on the Flanker

[edit on 7/4/09 by FredT]

reply to post by FredT

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How do yo have 3D vectoring

Up/Down and left/right I can understand as 2D, but 3D would imply that it has something to do with depth

edit: I've just gone and answered my own question with a little search... I was thinking along the lines of the way the nozles orientate them selves in order to vector the thrust.

The 2D and 3D refers to the effect on the direction of travel so 2d ='s pitch, 3D adds the yaw factor...

But I still kinda thnink 2D should be 1D and 3D 2D

[edit on 4/7/2009 by Now_Then]

reply to post by Jezza

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Maybe the japanese can do something really cool with them. Maybe they could take 5 of the F22s.. and morph them together to create either a super ground unit... or a nice gun ship.


For some reason this makes me think of starscream.

reply to post by FredT

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do you actually know how many US combat aircraft were lost in vietnam?

the figure is totally gobsmacking


2,251 USAF aircraft alone were lost , 31 B-52`s , 335 thunderchiefs , 243 super sabres , 445 phantom`s - the numbers are amazing when you think they were only fighting `pajama wearers`

you also mention `the turkey shoot` - how about the previous when the USAF fighters had there ass handed o them in a similar situatuin?

Hmmm, the Vietcong did posses a pretty sophiticated air defence network for the time. Also its unlikely you would see huge cells of B-52's bombing from altitude trailing thier coats for easy pot shots from the air defence networks. While the Vietcong were wearing Pajamas they displayed a pretty shophiticated set of tactics and they had the best air defence network the Soviets could design for them.

ARM were in thier infancy
Jamming was in its infancy
The USAF lacked the first strike capacity afforded them by B-2's and F-22's that would allow them to target C3I targets.
The widespread use and trageting accuracy of cruise missiles did not exists (CALCM and Tomahawk)
PGM's did not appear until later in the war and almost everything today is a PGM (JASSM, SDB, GBU's etc)



If you go back to what I was talking about; Raptors versus the NK airforce even with thier air defence network not diealed back, it would be no different than the Marianas Turkey Shoot.........

Are you suggesting that that NK's AF and air defence network is up to say Russian or Chinese standards

We are talking about North korea No?

reply to post by Now_Then

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The nozzles can rotate in what amounts to a circle as opposed to say up or down like they do in the Raptor.

The F-22 line is about to be shut down, and once it's down, the skilled technicians that enable the current production will be lost.

This is a measure to keep the production line open, although the Japanese F-22 will not be sporting all the bells and whistles of the American version.

It will be lacking core technologies.

But it will keep the production line open, keep the skilled technicians on the job, and overall drop the purchase price of our own F-22's as some of the startup costs can be recovered.

I like the idea, and would see that even Israel - our other strong ally gets a few dozen.

Simply because our Secretary of Defense, as with others in the current Administration, can only see as far as their next meal.

[edit on 4-7-2009 by dooper]

Japan will be able to recreate most of what they wont be getting on the raptor anyway given the advanced state of thier electronics industry.



Isreal should NEVER get the raptor. Given thier propensity to sell our technology to the higest bidder, we might as well sell them to the Chinese directly and cut out the middle man

The LAVI is just one such example. The US funded Arrow no doubt has been sold off as well.

reply to post by FredT

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of course the USAF were not expecting the sheer ability of the NVA and the SAM networks - which goes to show what a good sam network can actually achieve.


i do honestly hope that the 1 lesson elarnt from that war - never take a gun froma fighter is still listened to today.