F-47 vs. Tempest: Will Japan Abandon Europe For America’s Sixth Generation Fighter?

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has received a proposal from U.S. President Donald Trump to procure the F-47 sixth generation stealth fighter, an aircraft currently under development for the U.S. Air Force and scheduled to enter service in the early-mid 2030s. The president first raised the possibility of developing an export variant of the new fighter on March 21, when he <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/boeing-selected-develop-f47-sixth-generation-fighter-turning-point" target="_blank">announced</a> that Boeing had been selected as the primary contractor to develop the aircraft. Should the fighter be offered for sale abroad, Japan appears to be its most likely client, and could procure it in far greater numbers than other possible operators. The Japan Air Self Defence Force showed a particularly high interest in the F-47’s <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/25-f22-maiden-flight-looks-like-failure" target="_blank">troubled fifth generation predecessor</a> the F-22, although the aircraft was never marketed abroad and saw production for the U.S. Air Force cut by over 75 percent.&nbsp;Japan was previously by far the largest client for the F-47 and F-22’s fourth generation predecessor the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/f15-half-century-since-first-flight" target="_blank">F-15 Eagle</a>, and received 220 fighters during the Cold War which was considerably more than the fleets of all other clients combined. Japan’s is the only air force that uses Western fighters which relies on heavyweight fighters to form the majority of its fleet, with the exception of the Royal Saudi Air Force that also uses the F-15. Other F-15 operators such as South Korea, Israel and the United States rely on the fighters to form a small number of elite units due to their high costs.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/31/article_683b03d7329ef4_07937359.jpeg" title="Japan Air Self Defence Force F-15J and U.S. Air Force F-15C Fighters">Japanese procurement of the F-47 would conflict with the Defence Ministry’s current plans to invest in procuring Tempest sixth generation fighters currently being jointly developed with Sweden and Italy. The ministry confirmed <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/japanese-military-to-start-new-next-generation-fighter-program-to-replace-f-2-multirole-jets">plans</a> to start developing an indigenous stealth fighter in February 2019, under a program which was at the time expected to rely heavily on support from the United States due to Japanese industry’s lack of experience in the field. Subsequently in December 2022 it was announced that the Japanese program had been merged with the British-led Tempest program under the new Global Combat Air Programme, for which Japan and the United Kingdom planned to <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/britain-japan-engines-sixth-gen-fighter">jointly develop</a> new engines. Like Japan, however, the European states involved the program lacked experience developing stealth fighters even at the fifth generation level, while the Eurofighter and Tornado programs which Britain and Italy had previously participated in were both widely considered to be far from competitive aircraft for their times. This contrasts with the F-35, F-15 and F-4 Japan procured from the United States, which were all world leading in their performances for their times. Foregoing partnerships with or procurements from the United States to partner with struggling European fighter industries thus poised Japan to likely seen the standings of its top fighter units diminish considerably relative to those of competing air forces.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/31/article_683b05c797aea0_29321768.jpeg" title="Sixth Generation Fighter Concept Art By Lockheed Martin">The issues Japan faces if relying on the Global Combat Air Programme have become increasingly apparent as development has predictably faced growing delays, with Reuters on May 30 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/japan-frets-over-fighter-rollout-target-weighs-stopgap-options-sources-say-2025-05-30/" target="_blank">reporting</a> the emergence of considerable concerns in Tokyo that the program was unlikely to meet its target of rolling out a fighter in 2035. Facing significant development challenges, Britain and Italy are increasingly expected to push the fighter’s service entry date into the 2040s, potentially a full decade behind the operationalisation of Chinese and American sixth generation fighters in the early-mid 2030s. This follows a broader trend towards major delays in European fighter development efforts, with the Future Combat Air System program being pursued by France, Germany and Spain seeing its service entry date <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/dassault-chief-highlights-european-sixth-gen-fighter-could-come-25-years-behind-u-s-and-china" target="_blank">delayed to the 2050s</a>.Aside from the issue of development schedule, a further issue with the&nbsp;Global Combat Air Programme&nbsp;remains that the program is not expected to develop a fighter capable of operating on a comparable level to its Chinese or American competitors, largely due to the major discrepancies both in experience developing stealth fighters, and the major technological gap favouring the two larger powers. China and the United States both conduct research on development on entirely different and far larger scales, and have far larger industrial bases, which has resulted in a growing discrepancy between the performances of their fighters and those of other states. This can be clearly seen in the discrepancies in performance between their <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/west-heaviest-longest-ranged-fighter-expanding-f15ex" target="_blank">top fourth generation fighters</a> and those of European states, as well as in their lead of several decades in beginning to field indigenous fifth generation fighters.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/31/article_683b03f666b0f9_97681931.webp" title="Flight Prototypes Developed For Two Separate Chinese Sixth Generation Fighter Programs" > For the Japanese Defence Ministry, the F-47 is expected to appear highly favourable as a fighter which can be operationalised much earlier and with far lower risks than European alternatives, while likely offering a far superior performance including a much greater range. The fact that procuring the fighters will also help to address American concerns regarding Tokyo’s balance of trade surplus provides a further significant incentive to favour the fighter over the more uncertain Global Combat Air Programme. Realising greater interoperability with American fighter units based in Japan provides a further significant benefit. With the standing of Japanese fighter units having been increasingly diminished by major advances in Chinese <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/new-phase-single-crystal-blade-ws15" target="_blank">fifth generation fighter programs</a>,&nbsp;China’s&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/china-unveiled-stealthiest-fighter-sixth-generation" >unveiling</a>&nbsp;of two new sixth generation fighters&nbsp;in December 2024 already at flight prototype stages is likely to have raised the perceived need for Japan to procure such an aircraft both quickly and with the most advanced capabilities possible. The fact that the F-35s the country has ordered are not well optimised for air-to-air combat, and suffer limitations including&nbsp;a significantly lower endurance, more limited manoeuvrability, a smaller weapons payload, and a smaller radar size than even the F-15, have only further raised the urgency of this.&nbsp;