http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20090905-00000013-kana-l14

5 September 2009:
JDS Hyuuga, JMSDF, at Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture, for disaster prevention training, with four other organisations: JCG, JGSDF, prefectural police, and Yokohama City safety administration bureau.
Opens to public on 6 September.

(Off-Topic Alert)

To test my previous theory, I took a quick look in Wiki, and seems the modern JMSDF already has defense ships named the same as some of the WWII IJN warships of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Fleets that attacked Shang Hai in January 1932 and August 1937.
ISTR reading from somewhere that about four WWII IJN aircraft carriers supported the full-scale Japanese invasion of China in 1937, but I can’t seem to find all their names… except Kaga, Ryuujo, and maybe Houshou?
(BTW, on 11 November 1937, three ROCAF dive bombers surprise-attacked the Ryuujo, and she returned to Japan for repair and upgrade.)

I guess the Chicom ministry of foreign affairs staff aren’t as picky (as me) WRT JMSDF ships named after (or simply shared the names of) WWII IJN non-aircraft carriers that helped to invade China, though I guess the Chicom might be… more opportunistic, if the next JMSDF DDH is overtly named Akagi or Kaga? 8D
OTOH, Chicom complaints when the JMSDF built its first Oosumi Class LST, didn’t prevent the JMSDF from building more LSTs and now DDHs anyway. 8D

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7%E4%BA%8B%E5%A4%89

In January 1932, in the Shang Hai area, Houshou and Kaga, of the 3rd Fleet, IJN, were the world’s first aircraft carriers in combat.
The rest of the 3rd Fleet were four cruisers, four destroyers, and 7,000 marines.

*OFF-TOPIC ALERT*

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%81%82%E3%81%95%E3%81%8E%E3%82%8A_(%E7%B7%B4%E7%BF%92%E8%89%A6)

Grr. Since 16 February 2005, the JMSDF Asagiri Class destroyer DD-151 JDS Asagiri became a JMSDF Yamagiri Class training ship TV-3516 JDS Asagiri.
Same ship, but no longer a front-line warship. 8(

http://obiekt.seesaa.net/article/126928392.html
http://obiekt.seesaa.net/article/126921529.html

22DDH fan art already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuikaku
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%91%9E%E9%B6%B4

A random blogger mentioned the WWII IJN Zuikaku aircraft carrier was also 257 m long, with a 242 m upper deck. 8b
Another random blogger has the same first impression as mine: with 4,000 “passengers”, the toilets will be chaos.

] IMO the only… politically awkward names are Yamato and Musashi. 8D

“Whatever you do, don’t mention the war!”
– Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), “Fawlty Towers”, episode 6
“The Germans”

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20090831-00000167-mai-soci
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20090831-00000129-jij-pol

31 August 2009:
Amongst the JMOD FY2010 budget requests is 116.6 bil Yen for a new helo carrier-type helo-carrying defense ship, bigger than the Hyuuga Class.

1. Length: +25% to 248 m.
2. Displacement: +44% to 19,500 tons.
3. Number of heloes simultaneously operating on flight deck: +5 to nine heloes.
4. Number of heloes in hangar deck: +3 to 14 heloes.

Can carry 50 JGSDF trucks, and/or 4,000, eh, passengers.

Also, more Patriot PAC-3 batteries in northern Kyuushuu; and possibly AAA units in Hokkaidou, Touhoku, and Okinawa.

And 56.1 bil Yen for 58 new MBTs to replace Type 74s.
(Type 61s and Type 74s were the usual victims in giant monster movies.)

] Thank you for the links, I will check them out!

No problemo, dude. If you’re enough of a F-104 maniac, those two sites probably have links to other F-104 fan sites, probably in English, that you can explore when, say, you’re having a boring Sunday afternoon.

Personally, and as I said before elsewhere, I’m more of a fan of fighter-attackers, not of fighter-interceptors.

] As Sferrin has posted several USAF F-104 pilots hang out on rec.aviation.military.

FYI, I was active in r.a.m from the late ’80s to exactly ’98, when I gave up Usenet, after I relocated in the real world. The good old days, before the fall of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War… and the rise of the Clinton administration. 8D

Sir, no, sir!

Did they solve that tail problem yet?

http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0725/TKY200907250001.html
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0725/TKY200907250001_01.html

Saturday, 25 July 2009:

“JASDF next transport aircraft
Flight is when?
Lack of strength is not solved”

http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=18&articleid=2009072102545410107&newssetid=1329
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=18&articleid=2009072102545410107&newssetid=1329
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview.htm?linkid=18&articleid=2009072017562381409&newssetid=1329
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/service/news/shellview3.htm?linkid=197&articleid=2009072016040663175&newssetid=

20 July 2009:
From what I can figure out via Yahoo! Babel Fish, two bronze busts/monuments were unveilled at the ROKAF Academy, to honour the father and son who were (IIRC) a ROKAF WSO and a ROKAF pilot, who bought the farm in a F-4 and a KF-16, respectively.

The only words I understand are the four Chinese words, in the right half of the first line of the text on the black monolith between the busts, which mean “Aircraft human same body”.

] I am particulary interested in what kind of tactics the pilots used when conducting DACT.

For English sites dedicated to the F-104, try these two active sites to which I irregularly contribute data; they probably have essays or stories about F-104 ACMs.

916-Starfighter.de
http://www.916-starfighter.de/

International F-104 Society
http://www.i-f-s.nl/

Personally, although I’m not a big fan of the F-104, which is a decade or three before my time, one of my (lifeless) hobbies (since August 2003, the same month when I joined this forum here) is to research and translate military aviation attritions (accidents and combat losses) in Northeast Asia, and as the Japanese and Taiwanese AF used to operate the F-104, I share notes with these sites, WRT Jap and Taiwanese F-104 attritions, and surviving F-104s that are displayed or preserved all over Japan or Taiwan.