Japan has taken delivery of its first Lockheed Martin F-35B stealth fighters.
An initial batch of three jets were ferried by US pilots to Nyutabaru air base in Japan’s southern Miyazaki region on 7 August. A fourth example is set to arrive at Nyutabaru at an unspecified later date, according to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF).
Four more F-35Bs will be delivered to the base by March 2026, according to the Japanese defence ministry.
Tokyo plans to acquire 42 of the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) B-variant of the F-35. These will supplement the country’s fleet of conventional take-off and landing F-35As, which is eventually planned to reach 105 examples.
Those figures would make Japan the largest operator of the singled-engined stealth fighter outside of the USA. Japan is also notably one of only three countries home to an F-35 final assembly production line, with the others being in Italy and the USA.
The JASDF’s first F-35As arrived in Japan for frontline service in 2018. Forty-four are currently in service, according to fleets data from aviation analytics firm Cirium.
The F-35B will add significant capability to Japan’s military arsenal, even compared to the F-35A.
The STOVL capability of the B-variant will allow Tokyo to operate fixed-wing fighters from the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s two “multi-functional destroyers”, which are aircraft carriers in all but name.
Similar to the light carriers operated by nations like Italy, Japan’s JS Kaga and JS Izumo are not outfitted with catapult-assisted launch and arresting wire recovery systems needed to operate fighters without STOVL capability.
The UK operates the F-35B aboard its Royal Navy’s (RN’s) two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
The US Marine Corps (USMC) also flies the F-35B from Washington’s America-class and Wasp-class light carriers, known as amphibious assault ships within the Pentagon.
These are separate from the US Navy’s (USN’s) larger Nimitz- and Ford-class supercarriers, which use the catapult and arresting wire system to operate the F-35C and Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, among other types.
Japan has already conducted sea trials aboard its two flattop vessels using American F-35Bs, in anticipation of the type’s entry into service with the JASDF.
In 2024, pilots and special test aircraft from the USN spent several weeks operating from the Kaga off the coast of California, assessing the converted ship for suitability. Evaluated tasks included aircraft recovery via vertical landing, refuelling and short take-off launching from the ship’s 248m (814ft)-long flight deck.
Ahead of the Kaga flight trials, Japan had retrofitted the ship for fixed-wing operations. The vessel had previously been equipped only to carry rotary-wing aircraft.
Tokyo’s first modern aircraft carrier – the Izumo – completed flight certification trials in 2021, also with F-35Bs from the USMC. That milestone marked the first time in over 75 years that Japan’s military forces included an operational aircraft carrier.
Modifications made to get the Japanese vessels ready for hosting fighters included expanding the surface area of the flight deck and painting the landing surface with heat-resistant materials to withstand the F-35B’s Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-600 vector-thrust engine.
Japanese personnel also spent time aboard the UK RN’s HMS Prince of Wales in 2023 as that ship underwent flight trials with the USMC. Those tests included an alternative rolling vertical landing technique and the ski-jump-assisted launch of a heavily-loaded F-35B configured in so-called “beast mode”, which gives the jet an expanded ordnance payload of 9,980kg (22,000lb).
