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Aviation History
1988
1988 - 0151.PDF
support fighter, C-l transport, PS-1 flying boat, and now the T-4 trainer. Its production experience is now of the highest calibre and quality. The Asuka Stol research aircraft shows that its engineers can be inventive; and the T-4 trainer programme exhibits not only the Japanese trait of setting realistic (if conservative) targets, but the manage ment skills to execute them. The Japanese industry's misfortune is that, as its technology and project management expertise rise towards a competitive level with European and American companies, there is no commen surate international marketing oppor tunity because of the armaments export ban. Unlike successful Japanese exporters, such as the car industry, where long-term planning and marketing strategy initially took precedence over technology, the aerospace industry is operating in a technological vacuum. ' The industry has visions of an aero- spaceplane similar to Europe's Hermes. Like Hermes, it is more of a technology driver than a practical vehicle, but at least the Japanese are honest enough to admit the fact. The critical question is whether they will be able to spin off technology from this and other more immediate projects, such as development of the F-16 into the SX-3 (FS-X) support fighter, and use it to gain a foothold in the international aerospace equipment market. What is certain is 'that SX-3 will severely test Japan's systems integration and software capability, and in doing so it will provide the cornerstone not only for Japanese aircraft technology, but also for air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles. Perhaps the biggest psychological hurdle for Japan is to gain recognition as a true partner with Boeing on the 7J7, and for Japanese companies to participate in the development of materials, electronics, software, and marketing. Given the current state of Japanese development experience, and despite Miti's declared policy of partnership rather than subcontracting, this is a tall order, even on Boeing's revised timetable. But association with the programme, in whatever capacity, can only add to the store of Japanese experience—as will new long-term military licence-production deals such as the ten-year Patriot programme. If it were not hindered by the military export ban, there would be no reason why the 21st century should not see the Japanese aerospace industry and its avionics and systems companies taking advantage of long-term low-interest money from friendly local banks, and repeating the current success of its coun terparts in the automobile and consumer electronics sectors. It recognises, however, that it is behind US and European tech nology at present (particularly in advanced combat engine design), and it is small, even by European standards. This relatively small size (it has less than a quarter of the sales of the British industry and less than 4 per cent of the Americans) is exemplified by the low production rates of the F-15 (one or two per month) and the P-3 (one every two months). This raises unit costs, and would count against Japan in export markets unless expedient pricing policies were adopted. The fundamental problem facing the industry is that it lacks a cohesive plan. This is hardly surprising in view of the nation's long-standing ambivalence towards defence expenditure (see Flight last week, pages 18-21), but it also derives from the number of Government agencies involved. These include Miti, the Agency of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Transport, as well as the Defence Agency. Any expansion beyond the dominant domestic military market would depend partly upon the extent to which high- added-value, high-margin, labour- intensive industries, and services such as software development, gain recognition in Japan, and the rate at which its high labour costs drive production of high- volume consumer goods into Korean and Taiwanese factories (often owned by Japanese companies). Flight was told that Japanese elec tronics companies regard aerospace as a "dream" industry. Whether this implied mere fantasy or indicated the height of their long-term expectations was not
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