Japanese military officers recently visited the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales to observe F-35Bs in operation, a significant step in Japan’s journey towards integrating the stealth jump jet into its naval capabilities.
This visit comes as Japan plans to modify some of its ships to accommodate the F-35B.
HMS Prince of Wales has recently completed a series of successful F-35 flight tests along America’s East Coast, a model Japan aims to emulate next year.
Royal Navy Capt. Richard Hewitt, commanding officer of HMS Prince of Wales, remarked on the broader implications of these tests: “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.”
During the Developmental Test phase 3 (DT-3) flight trials, integrated test team F-35B pilots executed nearly 150 short takeoffs, several score vertical landings, and close to 60 shipborne rolling vertical landings on the ship. This display of operational capability was part of the insights shared with the Japanese delegation.
Lockheed Martin said in a press release:
“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.”
Royal Navy Lt. Commander Roderick Royce, who hosted the Japanese delegation, highlighted the potential for future collaboration: “Hopefully it is the first of many such collaborations which might one day lead to full interoperability between our respective carrier strike groups.”
He also envisioned the possibility of a Japanese F-35B landing on HMS Prince of Wales in the future.
“It is quite possible we will one day see a Japanese F-35B landing on the deck of HMS Prince of Wales.”
“But…But…No other nation can fly jets off a UK carrier because of cats and traps….”
Except Japan, USA with USMC, Italy, Singapore probably S Korea, Spain with Harrier
SK is looking at a navalised KF21 for their CVX.
CVX has pretty much be canceled, it currently has no budget so I doubt they will be thinking of a naval KF21
Cheers, I hadn’t seen that. No F35Bs either then I guess.
😉👍
Exactly.
But, you forgot the
but but Harrier would have been as good; and
but but we don’t have enough – the fact we have more F35B than we ever had SHAR us, of course, not relevant.
Sorry to be awkward but the total buy for the two Harriers was 124 aircraft, of which 50 were Sea Harriers.
50 SHAR was over the full life of the program. Even that sounds a bit high to my wonky memories.
We never had 50 SHAR operational……
800,801,899 in latter years.
Was it 8 per Sqn?
Sounds about right to me – at its peak I would guess we had 24 serviceable SHAR?
Bear in mind an Invincible couldn’t take that many and there was only ever likely to be two usable Invincibles at a time. So there wasn’t a lot of point in having much larger numbers.
Wasn’t 899 the OCU?
Yes.
We don’t have 50 F35’s either and never will the way we’re going. 😏
Forgotten though that F35B has the air dominace capability of a F22. Superior in many ways to F22.
Hi Robert
How are tricks? Isn’t the F22 due for a mid life upgrade? I imagine it will leap frog the F35 then. I’m unsure if the F35 has as good a stealth profile as the F22 though.
We had about 25 SHAR in service.
Surely this is fake news, we have no aircraft for our aircraft carriers 🙂
There were on operational UK f35’s on POW, just two or three trials aircraft.🙄
True but that wasn’t its mission, it was purely a test deployment not an active one operational F-35s Immigration would have had no real role.
The point though, surely, is that we couldn’t put a squadron of eight on her anyway without taking them off QE., and now it looks as if we’re going to have real problems forming a third squadron this side of 2030. It’s pathetic.
Really hope CSG 25 can see increased UK jet numbers as well as F35B contingents from Japan, Singapore and Italy.
None of those 3 nations will have anything other than tiny numbers of F-35B in 2025 I’m afraid. Singapore also wouldn’t be interested in putting them on a ship either. No real training benefit for them but a lot of risk.
Were they watching USMC test pilots flying USMC test planes from HMS Prince of Wales as they learned “from Britain”? I understand the temptation to give a headline local appeal, but this might be overdoing it.
As for “Japan plans to modify some of its ships to accommodate the F-35B”, isn’t that a bit too future tense? Japan has already completed conversion of Izumo and Kaga, with JS Izumo hosting F-35Bs in 2021. Kaga was running post-modification sea trials last month and should embark F-35s soon.
British crew,British deck,British drills so I would say they along with the USMC pilots were learning from us👍
You mean the Japanese just get on with it with some urgency rather than agonisingly over plan every micro step of the process?
Does every unknown micro step get plugged in the software. Then Japan updates known parameters and bingo.
Yeah apparently they just took the cheapest flight available out of Japan and sadly upon arrival there were no US Marine flat tops available at short notice to demonstrate the process for them to learn from, but someone mentioned PoW was handily there so they cadged a lift on a helicopter. Indeed that’s probably why the Marine pilots were on PoW too come to think of it.
I was being tongue in cheek.
The Japanese are generating capability with great urgency.
UK are doing it a bit lethargically and all the usual hand wringing about resources.
I guess if there was no relevance they would have watched Marine pilots flying off Marine ships esp as they are superficially more akin to their own set up.
RN do tend to operate a little differently to USMC & there is the obvious difference of the ski jump. I think UK was also the first to try rolling landings with F35B? If Japan wants to get back into the big deck carrier game at some point, POW & QE are worth considering.
It’s not just about the aircraft or the nationality of the pilot flying it. It’s how the whole carrier works to conduct air operations. Flight deck operations. Flight safety and damage control. Hangar deck operations. Engineering, flyco, logistics. Integration with the task group. Sustaining air operations thousands of miles from home. It’s a huge task. Which is why so few nations operate carriers.
This is the f35 b navy multi verse. We can learn from each other. It’s a good thing.
Reuters are reporting that there sources are saying sometime this week UK, Japan and Italy will sign a treaty creating a new company to run and build the GCAP. Headquartered in London with roating ceos from all 3 countries starting with Japan.
At least this time there isn’t Germany to scam their way to have the company headquartered.
Bit concerning that the work share looks to be either 40% or 33.3%. The UK always ends up getting scammed with the work share.
That seems a little odd at first glance, can understand Japan having an equal share even if a greater share of the actual design will likely be Bae and tech transfer to them but there are other advantages to be gained by us no doubt. Just a little bit surprised that Italy would gain an equal share as initially it was just Leonardo UK involved and they had no project (unlike the Japanese) to role into it. But then maybe the sensor business is so important now that does deserve a greater share, but again much of that will be… Read more »
Work carried out by Leonardo in the UK counts towards the UK work share, not Italian, just like Typhoon work carried out by Airbus in Germany or Spain counts to those countries rather than France or the Netherlands. The issue I have with the work share is that Britain is spending 3 times as much as Italy on GCAP. The other issue is that BAE brings by far the most experience to GCAP, as does Rolls Royce. If the UK is taking the lead, then we should take the lead in work share. BAE and RR are helping develop Turkeys… Read more »
Putting things into perspective, and it’s boring unless your interested in facts, of all the leading counties who have so far ordered the F35 we are at the bottom.
Ranked how?
By numbers ordered? Aside from the U.S… Australia 72;Canada 88; Finland 64; Israel 75; Italy 90; Japan 147; Netherlands 52; Norway 52; South Korea 80. There are quite a few others not that far behind.
Thank you. That was probably obvious to you…
👍
My only point would be that production of the B version the last time I read (a while back mind) was struggling in comparison to the A version and even the US Marines were getting them slower than desired. I suspect A orders are rather easier to complete not to mention cheaper, and I am still not convinced that we are completely committed to only the B version as is so often indicated. But as things stand if we changed part of the order to the A version we know what the media response would be, so if it does… Read more »
I think there might well be truth in what you say. Maybe a question of scale. The A has been ordered in greater numbers. Originally I would have liked to see the A for the RAF and B for the RN but we’re not there anymore. I do wonder whether with Tempest appearing to be making good headway if we are going to be getting many more Lightnings at all. I know there has been talk of another 20 plus but nobody has ordered them yet. We have been painfully slow. Five years to get to probably 16 frontline aircraft… Read more »
Block IV is perhaps the stumbling block. Without block IV, F35 is severely crippled. Even for the US. Except for a couple of AA missiles, everything is at the simple end when it comes to weapons. Compared to Ukraine’s effort at fitting Western weapons to ex Soviet aircraft, it’s rather pathetic.
Francis Tusa has written a piece about F35 plans going forward for the RAF/FAA on the Defence Eye site – its subscription only but the snippets available give good food for thought.
South Korea has ordered 65, they are not buying F35B, and Israel has ordered 50.
For most of those countries it is their only fighter jet.
I never mentioned the B version and even if your figures are right, although I took mine from the procurement web site list, they still have more than the UK.🙂
Waiting for block 4 so we use our uk weaponry. Uncle Sam was naughty.
Indeed the cost and feasibility of upgrading many of those we have is a big factor here, makes sense to wait till compatible airframes are available. Was supposed to be this past Summer but not sure with talk of further delays, they are still coming off the production line with the capacity to take Block 4. I read some months back that the US military was refusing to accept any more airframes that don’t upon delivery have the upgraded computer/electrics to run it even if it’s still years away to actually install Block 4 capabilities itself.
the upgraded computer/electrics – Technical Refresh Three (TR3)
Simon
Its not Uncle Sam – it’s LM. US is in the same boat so to speak. It’s a ‘strike fighter’ in name only. It doesn’t even have a AShM available. When it comes to strike, everything is at the ‘smart’ end of the ‘dumb’ range (eg SDM, JDAM & JDAM-ER etc).
Interesting that our commanders are already outright calling the Japanese naval groups with a flattop ‘carrier strike groups’.
Some CCP shills are going to be going into overdrive.
Always remember the shock and near disgust when Yoko Ono claimed that Britain and Japan were very similar nations, almost mirror images in many ways. Memories were too conscious back then to accept such a comparison but must admit in many ways she had a point that is becoming much more obvious as well as palatable these days. I think any commitments we might have in the Pacific will be at least as vital in terms of Japan as it is Australia. If it’s going to have any meaning indeed the stronger defence ties we have with Japan the better… Read more »
We built almost the entire Japanese flagship fleet up until 1914, Battlecruiser Kongo which fought in WW2 was built at Barrow-in-Furness by Vickers. We really were best of friends until the Army crowd took over and decided the entire Pacific looked like easy pickings.
IJN based itself on the RN. It was an actual WW1 military ally. There were convoys whose escorts included IJN ships during WW1. Then they went off the rails. It’s take them a long time as a nation to get back on the tracks properly. A bit like Germany, they overcompensated.
Sort of necessary
With Germany it was largely generals and the politicians who were, to put it lightly, loony. With Japan a large proportion of the population were prepared to sacrifice themselves, despite the near zero chance of victory.
Re Germany – politicians definitely. Generals, not so much (other than ‘political’ generals who like Hitler, had no idea). Germany had some world class generals, handicapped by politicians (one especially), who thought they were Napoleon. Japan is cultural. The Emperor of Japan was basically considered semi-devine. As in some way (much reduced), the King of Thailand. Anti-monarchy sentiment was not (is not) tolerated, not only by the government, but the people. Anglo-Celtic mindset (Anglo being Germanic), doesn’t mind taking the head of the odd King if need be. Asian societies, especially East Asian, don’t work like Western (especially Germanic) peoples… Read more »
Japan was obedient Britain’s allies and enjoyed its good relationship until the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.
It was at this conference that Japan’s Racial equality proposal was rejected by the American and British.
Betrayed by British, humiliated Japan had shifted more nationalist and isolated from the West from this point, turned to the dark side.