Japanese homemade stealth fighter – ATD-X Shinshin fighter is to make its maiden flight in February, and Chinese military expert Chen Hong said in an interview that this fighter has been far behind China’s J-20 and J-31 fighters.
Japanese F3 ATD-X Shinshin fighter’s experimental aircraft is only 14 meters long and 9 meters wide, smaller than the future full-size fighters.
Chen Hong said although Japan has purchased F-35 fighters from U.S.A., the price is too high – nearly 200 million US dollars, and the core technologies will not be delivered along; however, Chen said Japan doesn’t have enough high technologies for developing a homemade stealth fighter.
Japan might obtain some technologies from the U.S., but it is still unknown that how many technologies U.S. will offer. Chen emphasized that however high a country’s industrial level is, it doesn’t mean it is able to develop a stealth fighter.
And as the experimental aircraft of F-3 Shinshin is only 14 meters long and the maximum load is only 8 tons, even 2 meters shorter than F-16 and owns about 1/2 load of F-16. And even if it will be enlarged in the future, the process will be extremely hard.
Besides, compared to China and Russia’s J-20 and T-50 stealth fighters, Japanese homemade ATD-X Shinshin fighter still have a very long way to go and is far behind.
Chinese military critic Wei Dongxu thought that compared to its surface ships and submarines, Japan is highly relying on America’s fighters, such as F-15J customized by US company or F-2 based on F-16 fighter, which cannot be exported to any other countries. But if Japan successfully develops F-3 ATD-X Shinshin fighter, it will be able to export it to NATO or European countries, as Japan is superior in materials and electronics.