Boeing [BA] believes its F/A-18 Super Hornet is still in hunt to win the Japan’s next fighter competition despite multiple media reports out of Japan last week saying the government was poised to select Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] F-35 Lightning II.
Three Japanese news outlets reported the Defense Ministry was to announce on Friday that the F-35 had prevailed over the F/A -18 and Eurofighter’s Typhoon, but that announcement was pushed back to Tuesday. Japanese officials insisted no decision had been made but the process was in the final stages.
Phil Mills, Boeing’s campaign manager for the fighter competition, said in a telephone interview from Tokyo that he believed Japan was taking “another look” and remained optimistic about Boeing’s chances.
“They are taking another look at the best move for Japan to make right now,” said Mills, who was in Japan making a late pitch for Boeing’s proposal.
Japan is holding the F-X competition for 40 to 50 fighters to replace its aging fleet of F-4s. The Defense Ministry would be looking for the first four airplanes to arrive some time in 2016.
Mills said the F/A-18 is a better option for Japan because its production process is well established and helps drive costs down in comparison to the F-35 and Typhoon, while offering a high level of capability. The F-35 is in low-rate production in the United States and has experienced cost overruns and delays.
Lockheed Martin officials say their plane is well into production, with 30 set to be built under the fifth round of low-rate initial production, and with each variant of the plane having already combined for hundreds of flights since the beginning of the year. Lockheed Martin said its plane is best suited for the threat environment in East Asia.
“The F-35 bid offered by the U.S. government and Lockheed Martin meets all of the F-X requirements, while providing affordable 5th generation capability and significant industrial value to Japan,” the company said in a statement last week.