is this the canned project or something new? F-16 is kind of old now.
Japan during the 2000’s had an insane boom in stealth tech developement and electrónics advancements due to insanely high funding and leverage aswell as civilian nad military market handling the same shared tech aswell as being exceedingly good at material sciences
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not really sure what’s what. i think it was a proposal to US gov bidding? it was fulfilling the task of more payload and extended range. i think it lost to the competitor.
hey i am not saying japan cannot make anything good. all i said it look similar to F-16XL because they made it delta wings.
if theoretically lockheed put 2 engine on the XL and “stealthivy” which mean combined with F-22. it would not looked much different than the current GCAP.
Lockheeds last attempt to sell the F-22 to Japan (~2021/22 I think) was very similar. Essentially they offered a modernized F/B-22 design marketed as “F-22/35 hybrid”.
This fell through in the end though because they only offered very limited Japanese shares in the project, with optional Japanese made engines, while joining GCAP could bring better capabilities with full development share.
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thing is that japanese would be more equivalent to F-35 in role and capabilities, while having technically better stealth profile according to requirements, as per main tech on the GCAP its the energy generation it gets, the engines are already integrated with an energy generator capable of producing 180 Kw per unit wich its supossed to feed the plane with enough energy to fit direct energy weapons such as DIRCM’s and even use the radar as a direct energy weapon thanks to energy buffers, that while also keeping a thrust comparable to the F-22’s P&W F-119, altough rn the main objective is to upgrade the thrust to be even higher, it is a direct developement of the XF9-1
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Seems like Japan might be responsible for airframe assembly in Japan for production GCAPS
https://x.com/i/status/2080991161318084858
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Of course it’s mitsubishi lol. From air conditioning to 6th gen fighters they got it all.
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