In service with the Japanese Air Self-Defense Forces, several two-seat modifications of the F-2B multipurpose fighter continue to consist. The vehicle has significantly increased survivability and productivity due to the presence of a systems operator, but for the sake of the fuselage volume spent on the co-pilot's seat, it was necessary to sacrifice the volume of the fuel tank, which was cut by about 600 kg in comparison with the F-2A.
Starting with the verification of the radar signature of a reduced prototype of the airframe of the future Japanese promising 5th generation ATD-X fighter, which took place back in 2005 by the Technical Design Institute (TRDI) of the Ministry of Defense of Japan, the country for the first time began to demonstrate a high level of self-sufficiency in some of the most important areas of its own defense, which was previously based exclusively on the developments of the leading American companies Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The pace of development of the new ATD-X "Shinshin" was accelerated immediately after 2007, when Washington refused Tokyo to conclude a contract for the acquisition of American F-22A "Raptor" multirole fighters. As a result, after a fruitful 9-year work of TRDI employees and Mitsubisi Heavy Industries specialists, on April 22, 2016, an advanced fighter, completely unlike other aircraft of the class, took off into the air, the exact design and technical parameters of which were not disclosed, but are a "hodgepodge ", Combining all the available and visible advantages of the T-50 PAK-FA, Raptor and Lightning. This device will still have time to prove itself, and in our today's review we will consider the planned program of updating the “right hand of the Sinsin” - a multi-role fighter of the “4 ++” generation F-2A / B.
According to a report published on July 20 on Military Parity with reference to Western sources, the Japanese Ministry of Defense has developed a document requesting the provision of information by Lockheed Martin and Boeing on possible options for modernizing the 61st single-seat F-2A and 14 F fighter -2B, which are the most modern transitional generation vehicles today in comparison with the F-15J and F-15DJ. Based on information from various sources, the further fate of the F-2A / B will depend on the aircraft modernization configurations provided by American corporations, and, allegedly, if these options do not suit the Japanese, the design of a new transitional generation aircraft will begin to replace the first. But this option is absolutely not true.
Firstly, designing a new fighter for the Japanese treasury will cost an additional pretty penny, and the work will take at least 5-7 years. The new 4 ++ generation machine is unlikely to pay for itself, since it will be already 2021 - 2023 outside the window, when all the attention and funds will have to be spent exclusively on fine-tuning the avionics, making operational readiness and serial production of the 5th generation ATD- X "Sinshin". It would be much wiser to keep and upgrade all existing F-2s through the efforts of Lockheed and TRDI to the level of F-16C Block 60 or even higher, and the Japanese Falcons have much more potential than the F-16C Block 40. Similar work can be done carry out and with 156 fighters gaining air superiority F-15J / DJ, bringing them to the level of South Korean F-15K, American F-15SE "Silent Eagle" or Japanese variants of overseas and national modernization - F-15MJ and the radical stealth version of the F- 15J,digital sketches of which were published a couple of years ago.
Secondly, the Air Self-Defense Forces of Japan have long been familiar with the work of the Taiwanese aerospace company Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) under the program of updating the first 144 versions of Fighting Falcon, which in 2017 will begin in the main phase of modernization of the aging aircraft fleet. F-16A / B Block 20 to the level of F-16V. A deep improvement of the avionics of these aircraft is based on replacing the outdated AN / APG-66 airborne radar with a slotted antenna array with the latest AN / APG-83 SABR active phased array radar, which has synthetic aperture modes, terrain mapping and selection of moving small-sized sea and ground targets. The estimated cost of modernization of 75 F-2s will cost the Japanese no more than 2.5-3 billion dollars, since the information field of the cockpit, inertial navigation system and STS of the vehicles already correspond to the generation "4+", and the number is 2 times less than Taiwan. Recall that this program will cost Taiwan about $ 3, 7 billion, since almost all of the "ancient" F-16A / B filling is subject to replacement.
DESPITE THE DESIGN SIMILARITY OF THE JAPANESE F-2A / B WITH ALL FIGHTERS OF THE F-16 FAMILY, THE PRODUCT FROM "MITSUBISHI" HAS THE BEST AERODYNAMIC AND MODERNIZATION QUALITIES
Work on the first project of the national Japanese fighter FS-X, which began at TRDI in 1985, was hastily curtailed already in 1987 due to the lack of experience in conducting research on the aerodynamic qualities of promising supersonic aircraft, as well as the lobby of pro-American circles in the defense departments and the Japanese leadership, who under no circumstances wanted to lose a large share of the arms market for the United States. The United States refused to provide TRDI with specialists and its own developments for the design of an exclusively Japanese fighter, and as a result imposed a program on Tokyo to develop a machine based on the modernized airframe base of the American F-16C Block 40 "Night Falcon" fighter.
When comparing the silhouettes of the gliders of the basic F-16C Block 40 and the F-2A built on its basis, a constructive bias towards the maneuverability of the latter is clearly visible. The total area of the wing and elevators is more than 25% higher than the indicators of the "Night Falcon"
The program was launched in October 1987 under the same designation FS-X, in accordance with the Japanese-American intergovernmental agreement, and then, in the spring of 1990, was finally approved by the signing of a contract between Lockheed Martin and the Japanese consortium led by Mitsubisi Heavy Industries ". It also included Fuji Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. Taking into account the desire of the Japanese to create a machine capable of even one step closer to the maneuverability of our MiG-29A / S and Su-27S families, many American specialists noticed in the "Agile Falcon" program (the more maneuverable version of the F -16A for equal close air combat with Falkrums and Flankers with large wingspan and wing area).
The F-2A glider received, in comparison with Block 40/50, a wing area increased by 1, 25 times with an increase of 18% in span, as well as its sweep reduced from 40 to 33 degrees. That sharply and positively affected the angular rate of turn of the fighter, as well as the bearing qualities of the airframe, the specific load on the wing at normal takeoff weight remained the same for the "Falcon" level of 430 kg / m2. The service ceiling of the F-2 exceeds 18 km (the Falcon has only 16.5 km). A slight increase in mass was facilitated by the introduction of a large percentage of composite materials into the structure. The larger 1000-liter capacity of the internal fuel tanks of the single-seat version of the F-2A with an increased wing area led to a 43% increase in the combat range (from 579 to 830 km) compared to the Night Falcon, which is very an important criterion in conducting patrols near the Diaoyu (Senkaku) archipelago. F-2A can reach these lines from the Kagoshima airbase (in southern Japan) without the help of tanker aircraft.
Many could argue that there are one and a half hundred F-15J / DJ fighters for these tasks, but the capabilities of these machines in opposition to modern Chinese J-10B and J-11B are severely limited, since the same AN radar is on board the Japanese "Needles" / APG-63 with SHAR, which is several times less perfect than the new Chinese PFAR / AFAR stations. Due to the highest flight performance of all F-16 modifications, today the F-2A / B are considered the most formidable Japanese fighters before the ATD-X gains initial combat readiness.
Now, specifically about modernization. In addition to the excellent flight characteristics of the F-2A, the improvement of its avionics will give odds even to such machines as the Israeli F-16I "Sufa" and the American F-16C Block 60. Initially, all production aircraft, for the first time in world practice, received on-board radars with AFAR J / APG-1, whose PPMs are made on the basis of one of the most advanced semiconductors - gallium arsenide (GaAs). Higher than that of silicon, the electron mobility allows to achieve better quality and speed of the emitting and receiving PPM cycles in any frequency range. In addition, GaAs emitting elements have a lower noise figure, are able to operate for a long time at high powers, and also maintain an acceptable level of operation even at the time of the observed radioactive damaging factors of a nuclear explosion. The antenna array of the J / APG-1 station of the Mitsubishi Electric company consists of 800 PPMs and an OMS, developed in the early 90s, and therefore the maximum number of targets tracked on a pass is only 10 units, captured for accurate auto tracking is 4, with target detection range with RCS 1 m2 120 - 130 km. For threats of the XXI century, these parameters are "on the C grade". A more advanced radar is required, with a large number of modes and a throughput for tying target tracks to several dozen airborne objects.
The list of candidate radars for the Japanese fighter is small, it can be: an improved J / APG-2 type radar from a Japanese manufacturer, which is today mentioned in Internet publications as the basis of the electronic filling of the unobtrusive "Shinshin", or maybe American AN / APG-80 and AN / APG-83 SABR. The first is installed on the F-16C Block 60 and is capable of detecting an air target of the F / A-18E / F type (with suspensions) at a distance of 120 km. It differs from the AN / APG-68 (V) 9 radar not only by AFAR, but also by the viewing sector in the azimuth and elevation planes, which is 140 degrees. Starting with the AN / APG-80, there was a software opportunity to increase the number of targets tracked on the passage from 20 to 50 units, which makes the F-16C Block 60 pilot more knowledgeable in a complex tactical air situation, even when there are no E-3C "air radars", E-767, etc.
Another very important quality of the AN / APG-80 and AN / APG-83 SABR radars is the presence of the LPI (Low-Probability of Intercept) scanning signal interception mode. The radar operates in broadband frequency modulation with a noise-like type of radio wave, which creates decent difficulties in detecting the carrier of such an onboard radar, especially with the additional use of REB systems. At the moment, these stations can seriously exhaust the pilots of the Chinese J-10A with Pearls on board, as well as the Su-30MK2 with the outdated N001VE radar, but it is not their lot to compete with the Su-35S and J-20. The problem is that the number of the first and second in the Celestial Empire is still very small.
Like their "parent" radar with SHAR AN / APG-68 (V) 9, APG-80 and SABR are able to map the terrain and "guide" targets in the synthetic aperture mode, but with better resolution. The stations can be synchronized with the JHMCS helmet-mounted target designation system, which will give the Japanese F-2A / B better sighting and capture angles of enemy fighters in the BVB.
As a promising air-to-air weapon for the updated Japanese fighters, the AA-4B long-range missile is indicated, on which the same Mitsubishi has been working for about 5 years. The rocket is radically different from all the new products that we see at Raytheon, MBDA and other Western corporations: an active radar seeker with a phased array was designed for it, which in terms of accuracy and noise immunity will significantly surpass the AIM-120D or Meteor missiles, and also, in case of a miss, it will carry out an independent search and selection of the most priority remaining targets. The range of this rocket should be about 120 km.
Advanced Japanese AA-4B long-range air combat missile
The last, no less important part of the modernization may consist in equipping Japanese F-2 fighters with a J / AAQ-2 IRST optical-location sighting system in a module in front of the cockpit, as is done on Russian fighters, Rafala, some F-15Js and American "Block 60". In contrast to the containerized version under the fuselage, on the suspension, or on the side of the air intake, this configuration will provide more capabilities to combat aircraft in the upper hemisphere. The J / AAQ-2 complex is also integrated into the general control system of a fighter with a helmet-mounted target designation system JHMCS: F-2A / will be able to position themselves as worthy "close fighters", not inferior to the Chinese J-10A. For the final improvement of the quality of the BVB, the Japanese Ministry of Defense may conclude a contract for the purchase of a batch of several hundred AIM-9X Block II / III, which today are in high demand in the air forces of the countries of Europe, South-East Asia.
In 2027, it was planned to start writing off all the F-2A / B in service, but judging by the huge modernization stock of the Japanese vehicle, as well as the upgrade options in the Lockheed Martin and TRDI luggage, they will still have the opportunity to show himself in the air theater of military operations in the middle of the XXI century.
