BTW, I don’t know whether the ROKAF has announced the serial number or squadron yet?

Do
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=4&articleid=2007072309054659547&newssetid=746
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=4&articleid=2007072220141646607&newssetid=746
confirm the KF-16D and/or its pilots were 121st FS, 20th FW?

http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=327688

“U.S. House panel keeps ban on export of F-22A fighter”

WASHINGTON, July 25 KYODO

The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee on Wednesday approved a draft defense budget for fiscal 2008 that maintains a clause to ban the export of the state-of-the-art F-22A Raptor stealth fighter jet.
The move came as Japan apparently sees the fighter as the leading candidate to replace the aging F-4EJ fighter fleet to be scrapped from fiscal 2008, which will start next April 1.

I meant, for example, does the Decepticon F-22 have “AB 12-3456” on its rudders?

] if you click on the blue link at the bottom, it takes you to a page where you can see a small image of Spook.

The link leads to a minimal message board at
http://twitter.com/Suematsu
with the F-4EJ fan site Webmeister, Suematsu Kazuomi’s brief profile at the upper right.
In the profile, click the “Web” link to move on to his blog, which includes a “My flickr photos” at the upper right, which apparently have photos of the Kumagaya 2007 air show.
Thus, Suematsu han’s still breathing, out there.

Please welcome Mpacha as the new moderators [sic] on Modern Military.

Just wondering: is he multi-lingual, or English-only? 8)

No Blood For Sushi

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070725-00000907-san-pol

“JMSDF biggest
This is almost complete ‘helicopter carrier'”

25 July 2007.
IHI Marine United Yokohama Factory, at Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture.

16 DDH.
Length 195 m, width 33 m, displacement 13,500 tons, speed 30 knots, crew about 350, low observable to radar.
Deck from front to rear ends, bridge on starboard side. Four heloes can simultaneously take off or land. Elevators at front and rear. Interior hangar, length 125 m, can hold eight heloes.
ASW defense ship, with ASW heloes. High-level command and communication abilities, air combat control at sea. During large-scale disaster, surface heliport. International disaster relief, or overseas nationals evacuation.
SAMs, 20 mm cannons, torp tubes, and machine guns versus ships.

Will launch on 23 August 2007. After mounting weapons and precision equipment, will commission in March 2009.

BTW, WRT natural disasters, after the Niigata earthquake a week or two ago, JMSDF supply ships from Kyouto delivered materiel to earthquake victims by heloes and LCACs.
The US military in Japan also donated 96 air conditioners, but their plugs and voltage were different, and the JGSDF had to modify the air cons, with voltage transformers. 8D

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070720-00000022-jijp-soci.view-000

No Blood For Sushi

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200707210080.html

“Weekend Beat/ Filmmakers offer new view of kamikaze pilots”

07/21/2007
BY MARIE DOEZEMA, STAFF WRITER

Risa Morimoto was so shocked when she found out her uncle had once trained as a kamikaze pilot, she was inspired to make a film. Though she couldn’t ask her uncle about the experience–he died in the mid-1980s, before she found out about his secret past–she was determined to find others like him. Her film, “Wings of Defeat,” tells the tale of men who survived kamikaze missions through technical glitches and bizarre coincidences, allowing them to tell their stories over six decades later.