Japan's ATD-X stealth fighter suffers funding crunch

On Sep 4, 2:59*am, Tiger wrote:
SOURCE:Flight International

Japan's ATD-X stealth fighter suffers funding crunch
By Siva Govindasamy

Japan is unlikely to get the funding required to construct a stealth
fighter demonstrator in 2008, with industry sources expecting the
finance ministry to release only enough money to continue design and
technology studies.


The ATD-X seems to have been a strategy to induce the US to release
the F-22 to Japan.
Now if the US isn't being persuaded then then this may just be a sign
from the funding side
of the Japanese government that they either have a lack of confidence
and that
they want Japanese companies to do more homework before they commit
real
money or just a stalling tactic. To save face they will eventually
commit I think.

In the 1980s the West Germans independently developed a stealth
aircraft that could have been a world
beater: http://www.f-104.de/exponates/englis...ridae_eng.html

The usual political tensions and funding problems manifested
themselves and the program
was allowed to die away, It does show however that other forward
thinkers were
also thinking in terms of stealth.