TOKYO (Sputnik) – According to Kyodo News, high-ranking officials from Japan's defense and foreign ministries visited Iwakuni and informed the city Mayor Yoshihiko Fukuda as well as Yamaguchi Governor Tsugumasa Muraoka of the plans. The news agency noted that the Lockheed Martin's F-35 deployment in Japan would make the first US stealth aircraft stationing overseas.
In 2014, the CNBC news network described the F-35, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, as the most expensive project in the history of the US military amounting to as much as $1.5 trillion over 55 years of service.
The F-35 is the most advanced military aircraft, combining radar-evading and radar-jamming capabilities, supersonic speed, tight maneuvering and a helmet that gives pilots 360-degree vision.
In April, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced that US F-35 fighter jets would soon start their operations in Japan and South Korea. In March, US President Barack Obama pledged protection from the so-called North Korea's nuclear threat to Tokyo and Seoul.
