Some of America’s newest military hardware was exercised last month during the Foal Eagle/Key Resolve exercise between the ROK and the US:
A Marine F-35B fighter lifts off from the deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp. The open hatch behind the cockpit enables air to flow through a mid-fuselage lift fan; that plus downward-vectored engine nozzles at the rear give the plane vertical lift so it can land pretty much anywhere.
The Pentagon revealed this week that U.S. Marine Corps F-35 fighters are operating in South Korea for the first time, as they participate in joint training exercises with the Republic of Korea’s military. The eight planes are from a squadron of F-35Bs deployed to Iwakuni, Japan in January, where they will be permanently stationed and on call to respond quickly if a crisis occurs on the Korean Peninsula.
And therein lies a bigger story than the ongoing training exercise in which allied forces are practicing how to operate together in wartime. F-35B, the Marine variant of the tri-service fighter, isn’t just the world’s first supersonic tactical aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically, it is also invisible to radar. That’s what being stealthy means — the enemy can’t see you, but you can see them.
When you combine the vertical agility and invisibility of the Marine Corps’ latest fighter with the fused data from diverse sensors and the ability to share information securely among all fighters on a mission, what you have is a plane that can operate pretty much anywhere. Including over North Korea. So although U.S. Pacific Command is at pains to describe the training exercise as a routine annual event intended to provoke no one, the F-35’s presence is sending a powerful message to the mercurial leader of North Korea. [Forbes]
