Japan to cease in-country assembly of F-35 jets
By: Mike Yeo - Defense News
Lt. Col. Nakano, of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, sits in the cockpit of an F-35 before departing on his first solo sortie at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. (Tech. Sgt. Louis Vega Jr./U.S. Air Force)
MELBOURNE, Australia — Japan has confirmed it will not use in-country final assembly facilities for its next lot of Lockheed Martin
F-35 fighter jets.
A spokesperson from the U.S. ally’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency, or ATLA, told Defense News it will instead acquire aircraft imported from overseas for its upcoming fiscal 2019 contract.
The ATLA spokesperson referred Defense News to Japan’s Defense Ministry when asked why Japan will stop local assembly and checkout for its F-35s. The ministry has yet to respond to inquiries.
However, the recent defense guidelines and five-year defense plan released by the Japan government in late December said the country wants to “acquire high-performance equipment at the most affordable prices possible” and “review or discontinue projects of low cost-effectiveness.”
The Japanese government earlier that month
approved the country’s defense budget, which includes $612.35 million for the acquisition of six F-35As for the upcoming Japanese fiscal year that runs from April 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020.
The budget additionally allocates $366.12 million for “other related expenses,” which include maintenance equipment tied to Japan’s F-35 program.
Japan has taken the local final assembly and checkout, or FACO, route since 2013 for the final assembly of F-35As it previously ordered. According to the ATLA spokesperson, the FACO facility, which is operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will continue to carry out production work until FY22 to fulfill the F-35As contracted by Japan between FY15 and FY18.
Japan has struggled to sustain its local industrial base, with recently released defense guidelines acknowledging it needs to overcome “challenges such as high costs due to low volume, high-mix production and lack of international competitiveness.”
According to Japanese budget documents, the country agreed to purchase 24 of the F-35As, with each aircraft costing an average $144.2 million, although the cost per aircraft has been on a downward trend, with the FY18 batch costing $119.7 million each. (Both figures are based on current exchange rates and do not take into account currency conversion fluctuations.)
In addition to the 42 F-35As, Japan has also indicated it intends to procure a further 105 F-35s, which will include 42 of the F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing variant. The defense plan has called for the acquisition of 45 F-35s over the next five years, of which 18 will be F-35Bs.
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Interesting article. You rarely see a country investing in local industry for co-production of a military asset and then reverting back to procuring said asset straight from the supplier. This speaks both of the advancements that LM has baked in to the project recently to compact the per-unit cost, and of the extremely high prices Japan traditionally pays for armament acquisition.
That is partly due to politics, since - for example, although not directly applicable here - Japan has a stance of not making available their indigenous programs for purchase in the world arms market. Thus, they carry the full brunt of the development cost for each item, and cannot really apply economies of scale into their defense industry.