Fastest Fighters in Europe: Japan to Make First Ever F-15J Deployment to Britain

British Defence Secretary John Healey has confirmed that the Japan will for the first time deploy F-15 fighter aircraft in the United Kingdom, as part of plans for unit-to-unit exchanges with the British Royal Air Force. Although the Japan Air Self-Defence Force has significantly increased its engagement across the Western Pacific, while hosting fighters from multiple Western Bloc states on its territory with growing frequency, the deployment of F-15s would be an unprecedented development that will more deeply involve Tokyo in European security dynamics. Secretary Healy noted in a joint statement with his Japanese counterpart that the deployment would strengthen interoperability in preparation for the two countries’ joint production a sixth generation fighter under the Global Combat Air Programme – an aircraft that in the United Kingdom will be called the Tempest fighter. The announcement was made shortly after a British carrier strike group arrived in Japan for unprecedented joint exercises, which for the first time saw British F-35B fighters land on a Japanese aircraft carrier.

If deployed, the F-15 would represent the heaviest fighter in Europe outside Belarus and Ukraine, and by far the fastest fighter on the continent. Other than the two Soviet successor states, European states all rely on the deployment of much lighter and shorter ranged fighters such as the F-16, F-35 and Eurofighter, which carry significantly smaller radars than the F-15 and cannot match its speed and altitude. Although the British Armed Forces considered procuring both the F-15 and its even heavier counterpart the F-14 during the 1970s, the considerable costs of these more capable aircraft, and the perceived need to protect local industry, were among the factors which led the service to favour investing in joint programs with European states which later materialised as the Tornado and Eurofighter. Although Japan’s F-15 are increasingly considered obsolete, and a portion of the fleet are set to be phased out of service and replaced with F-35s, a little under half the fleet is set to be heavily enhanced and see avionics and armaments brought to a similar standard as the F-15EX currently being procured by the U.S. Air Force.

Japan confirmed plans to start developing an indigenous sixth generation fighter in February 2019, under a program which was at the time expected to rely heavily on support from the United States, although in December 2022 it was instead announced that the Japanese program had been merged with the British-led Tempest program under the new Global Combat Air Programme, for which the two countries planned to jointly develop new engines. Like Japan, however, the European states involved the program lack 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. Delays to and issues with the program have raised the possibility that Japan could abandon it to procure either enhanced variants of the F-35, or the F-47 sixth generation fighter which was offered by the United States in May. The F-47 is expected to produce a significantly heavier, more advanced and more capable aircraft overall, and at a much earlier date, but would not provide Japan with comparable opportunities for industry participation.