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Science & Technology
Japan helicopter carrier is now a F35-B aircraft carrier
2025-08-03
[YouTube]
Another chopper carrier is being converted so soon Japan will have 2 modern aircraft carriers
It started with a distant roar—more than just the sound of a jet engine. This was history arriving at 150 knots. A sleek F-35B Lightning II, its gray fuselage shimmering against the steel-blue Pacific sky, descended like a bird of prey. As it hovered and then touched down on the deck of the JS Kaga, a Japanese warship transformed, the world changed with it.

This wasn’t a rehearsal. This wasn’t ceremonial. This was the first time a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B fighter landed on Japanese steel. A real operational integration—proof that two nations, once enemies on these same waters, now stood shoulder to shoulder, prepared for anything.

The western Pacific has always been a crucible of power. And now, as tensions flare in the Taiwan Strait, as Chinese naval patrols grow bolder and more frequent, and as Taiwan looms larger in the geopolitical chess game, the sight of U.S. stealth fighters operating from a Japanese carrier sends an unmistakable message: the alliance is more than symbolic. It’s operational. Lethal. Ready.

But how did we get here?

Posted by:3dc

#2  This was the first time a U.S. Marine Corps F-35B fighter landed on Japanese steel.

Now the F4U Corsair has some past history with Japanese Steel.
Posted by: Varmint Poodle5244   2025-08-03 10:16  

#1  ...And the names chosen for their carriers are quite nice - Izumo was the very first ship of the Imperial Japanese Navy; the name has the same connotations to the Japanese as Constitution does for us.

And Kaga...well, you know.

Mike
Posted by: MikeKozlowski   2025-08-03 07:06  

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