The F-15J made her maiden flight on 4 June 1980 and officially entered into operational service with JASDF on 7 December 1981, thus replacing the F-104 Starfighter as Japan’s primary fighter plane.
The Royal Australian Air Force and Japanese Air Self Defence Force recently trained together at Exercise Bushido Guardian in Japan. This was the first time RAAF F-35A Lightning IIs travelled to Japan as part of the biennial exercise and is the first implementation of a Reciprocal Access Agreement between Japan and Australia last month.
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The UK Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) kicked off their first-ever joint aerial combat drill, dubbed Guardian North 16, on 23 October, according to the UK Ministry of Defense. It is the first time that the JASDF is conducting an exercise with a foreign power other than the United States.
The UK-Japan first-ever joint air combat drill involves four RAF Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets and a number of Boeing F-15J all-weather air superiority fighters (built under license by Japanese defense contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) and Mitsubishi F-2s, a 4.5 generation multirole fighter jet based on Lockheed Martin’s F-16.
Japan Will Buy a Lot More F-35 Stealth Fighters
The move comes and Tokyo seeks to modernize its air force in the face of North Korea and China.
Japan has decided upon making a massive, $23 billion F-35 stealth fighter purchase as part of a specific and decided strategic plan to counter Chinese and North Korean threats in Asia and replace its aging, yet high-performing, fleet of F-15J fighter jets.
In total, Japan appears to be buying nearly seventy F-35As and forty-two F-35Bs as part of a collective multi-year effort to overhaul its air fleet of existing, decades-old F-15Js and F-4s, a story in