Study Faults FSX Jet Deal With Japan : Aerospace: Key U.S. technology was obtained through trade program.

A Rand Corp. study finds that the United States erred badly in agreeing to allow important jet fighter technology to be transferred to Japan in the controversial Lockheed Martin FSX program, a move that essentially allowed Japan to achieve its goal of entering the exclusive fraternity of combat aircraft producers.

The study, released Tuesday by the Santa Monica-based think tank, asserts that the U.S. effort to curb the growth of the Japanese defense industry has failed and that Japan prevailed in its aim to develop its own unique jet fighter.

The FSX is scheduled to make its first test flight in Japan this month, something Rand said will “represent a triumph of purposeful public policy and industrial accomplishment.”

In the mid-1980s, the Reagan Administration argued that Japan should simply import F-16 jet fighters, then made at a plant in Ft. Worth owned by General Dynamics and now owned by Lockheed Martin.

Japan resisted the U.S. position, prompting critics to fear that Japan was bent on developing its own jet fighter that would then be offered for sale in competition with U.S. jets.

Nonetheless, the U.S. policy makers agreed to the FSX program, in which Japan would modify the F-16 and import part of the aircraft from the United States.

As it turned out, the FSX bears little resemblance to the F-16 and is for all practical purposes an all-new aircraft design, according to Rand author Mark Lorell.

And it’s now clear, he said, that U.S. policy makers underestimated Japan’s technical capabilities.

The study says that it is now critical for the U.S. to ensure that Japan proceed with production of the aircraft if the United States is to get any of the economic benefit. U.S. firms are supposed to build 40% of the plane.