General Background

During the 1980s the U.S. military wasn’t interested in an updated version of the F-16 so they passed on the opportunity. Japan was replacing some of their aging fleet and decided to develop the new F-16 Agile Falcon in cooperation with Mitsubishi and Lockheed Martin. Production began in 1996 with the first aircraft being delivered in 2000. The new aircraft was named the F-2 and soon earned the nickname “Viper Zero”. Although the F-2 looks similar to the original F-16 it is larger in almost every aspect.

The Aircraft

In the early 1980s the Japanese Defense Ministry's Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI) and the Air Development and Test Wing (ADTW) began a project to develop a made in Japan fighter to replace their aging Mitsubishi F-1. Construction began in 1993 with the single-seat FS-X prototype 63-0001 completed in January 1995 and the dual-seat XF-2B 63-0003 arrived in August 1997. In December JASDF serial numbers were changed to 63-8500 series for the single-seat and 63-8100 for the dual-seat so 63-0001 became 63-8501 and 63-0003 became 63-8101.