Japan Charts Course to F-35 Ops at Sea

Japanese military officers visited U.K. aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales to watch F-35Bs operate offshore. Japan’s navy is modifying some of its own ships to operate with the stealth jump jet.

HMS Prince of Wales recently completed a successful round of complex F-35 flight tests along America’s East Coast, where Japan plans to follow suit next year. The ship and her crew put on quite a show for their Japanese guests.

During the Developmental Test phase 3 (DT-3) flight trials, integrated test team F-35B pilots performed nearly 150 short takeoffs, several score vertical landings, and close to 60 shipborne rolling vertical landings on the ship.

Royal Navy Capt. Richard Hewitt, the ship’s commanding officer, noted that the benefits of DT-3 extend beyond the deck of a British aircraft carrier: “The test points achieved will not only improve U.K. F-35B operations, but those of our F-35B program partners and allies as well.”

That F-35B partnership currently includes the U.S., U.K., and Italy. The growing synergy among F-35 operators is boosting allied deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, where Japan is acquiring more F-35s than any other international customer – a mixed fleet of 147 F-35As and F-35Bs.

“Hopefully it is the first of many such collaborations which might one day lead to full interoperability between our respective carrier strike groups," added Royal Navy Lt. Commander Roderick Royce, who hosted the Japanese delegation. “It is quite possible we will one day see a Japanese F-35B landing on the deck of HMS Prince of Wales.”