F-35 chosen as Japan fighter jet

[Apache]

Anyone surprised?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16259895

[telecat]

Not Really. They were angling for the F-22 but that was a forlorn hope as the US won't let the tech out of the country.

[sirtyro]

Is the F-22 better than the F-35?

[Apache]

telecat said:

Not Really. They were angling for the F-22 but that was a forlorn hope as the US won't let the tech out of the country.

I'm surprised they could have afforded the F22..or were they only buying 2?

[davepoth]

Apache said:

I'm surprised they could have afforded the F22..or were they only buying 2?

If they'd been allowed to buy, the flyaway cost would be quite reasonable compared to dividing the total program cost by the number of planes built.

[Streps]

42 F-35 by what is being reported.
They were favored over the Eurofighter due to it's stealth characteristics.

[anonymous-user]

Here's a thought:

Modern fighter planes are complicated, very very complicated, and must contain literally millions of lines of control code. Lets say you were selling your new hi-tech jet to a currently friendly foreign power, would you build in a hidden "backdoor"? i.e. if things turn a bit sour, then you activate the hidden code, and whoops, none of your now enemies targeting systems work............ ??

[davepoth]

Max_Torque said:

Here's a thought:

Modern fighter planes are complicated, very very complicated, and must contain literally millions of lines of control code. Lets say you were selling your new hi-tech jet to a currently friendly foreign power, would you build in a hidden "backdoor"? i.e. if things turn a bit sour, then you activate the hidden code, and whoops, none of your now enemies targeting systems work............ ??

Yes, and the F35 has that. The UK paid extra to have access to the full code IIRC.