Twenty-four years after it entered development, the US military's stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has deployed overseas for its first frontline missions.
On Jan. 18, 2017, 10 F-35Bs from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 began landingat a Marine air base in Iwakuni, Japan after a nine-day, multi-leg journey from the squadron's previous base in Yuma, Arizona.
Once settled in, the newly-arrived squadron will be part of US Pacific Command's routine contingency planning for war with China or North Korea. If fighting breaks out in the region, the F-35s could go to war.
But that doesn't mean they'll win. The Joint Strike Fighter suffers serious, ongoing problems that cast doubt on its combat prowess. Especially in the Pacific region.
Since initial development of the new plane began in 1993, the Lockheed Martin-made F-35 has weathered a three-year delay, cost overruns, technical malfunctions and harsh criticism from political leaders. Today a single F-35B—that's the Marines' vertically-launching "jump jet" version of the plane—set US taxpayers back as much as $250 million once you factor in development costs.
That's more than twice the price of a new Boeing F-15 Eagle or F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. It could cost $400 billion to buy all 2,400 F-35s the Pentagon wants.
On Dec. 22, Pres. Donald Trump tweeted about the Joint Strike Fighter's "tremendous cost and cost overruns" and threatened to dump the plane in favor of the Super Hornet.
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