Photo: USAF/Senior Airman Trevor Gordnier
The F-35 Lightning is one of the few fifth-generation aircraft around and such a sight to behold every time it comes under the spotlight. Relatively young in the skies of the world (it had its first flight in 2006 as the F-35A), it’s already deployed in the service of several countries.
Aside for the U.S., the F-35 is being flown by the Air Forces of Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Korea, Singapore, and the UK. Although technically slightly different, on account of the particularities of every nation, the planes look the same, and it’s almost impossible to tell them apart.
Case in point, the image we have here, snapped at the beginning of July, and recently published by the U.S. Air Force (USAF). It shows an American F-35A, accompanied by a South Korean version of the same plane, and if it weren’t for the markings on their wings, it would be impossible to tell them apart.
The plane closest to the viewer belongs to the USAF. It’s deployed with the 356th Fighter Squadron out of Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, and it’s flying here accompanied by a sibling working for the Republic of Korea Air Force (RoKAF) somewhere over the Asian nation.
These two planes, and a bunch of others, were performing back in July combined training flights on and around the Korean peninsula, and according to the USAF “pilots from both nations were able to share tactics and learn from each other, increasing the lethality of the ironclad U.S.-South Korea alliance."
That is to be expected, of course, given how the two nations have been military allies ever since 1953, when the “relationship forged in blood” was cemented. At the time of writing, close to 29,000 American soldiers work and live in Korea, in two Air Force bases, a dozen army bases, and a Navy installation.
Case in point, the image we have here, snapped at the beginning of July, and recently published by the U.S. Air Force (USAF). It shows an American F-35A, accompanied by a South Korean version of the same plane, and if it weren’t for the markings on their wings, it would be impossible to tell them apart.
The plane closest to the viewer belongs to the USAF. It’s deployed with the 356th Fighter Squadron out of Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, and it’s flying here accompanied by a sibling working for the Republic of Korea Air Force (RoKAF) somewhere over the Asian nation.
These two planes, and a bunch of others, were performing back in July combined training flights on and around the Korean peninsula, and according to the USAF “pilots from both nations were able to share tactics and learn from each other, increasing the lethality of the ironclad U.S.-South Korea alliance."
That is to be expected, of course, given how the two nations have been military allies ever since 1953, when the “relationship forged in blood” was cemented. At the time of writing, close to 29,000 American soldiers work and live in Korea, in two Air Force bases, a dozen army bases, and a Navy installation.
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