Japan Flight-Tests Stealth Fighter Jet For First Time

Japan has successfully flight tested its fight generation fighter jet, the defense ministry said Friday.

The X-2 plane took off from Nagoya Airfield, Komaki Airport in Aichi Prefecture at around 08:50 a.m. local time on Friday (23:50 GMT on Thursday) and landed safely at Gifu Air Field in Gifu Prefecture at 09:13 a.m. (00:13 GMT), Defense Ministry Program Manager Hirofumi Doi told Bloomberg.

Japan is now the fourth nation, after the United States, Russia and China to test fly its own stealth jet.

Developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., the 14-meter-long (46-foot-long) X-2 is equipped with engines from IHI Corp. and cost about 40 billion yen ($366 million) to develop, according to the ministry.

According to Doi, the ministry will study data from the Friday test flight and decide on further developments of the fifth generation stealth fighter.

The government is due to make a decision on a replacement for the fighter jets by the end of March 2019.

If Japan decides to make a fighter-jet version of the stealth plane, its engines would be about three times the strength of those on the test version and the aircraft would need to be larger to store missiles, the ministry said in December.