Japan and Australia will provide maintenance and upgrades for U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets in the Pacific, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.
The countries will split the duties, with Australia servicing aircraft in the South Pacific, while Japan handles the north region, a division of labor that is expected to save time and money.
“If you're having airplanes in the northern Pacific that need a rapid upgrade to respond to a new threat, having to move them 7,000 miles to do that mod in Australia, or vice versa, has an operational impact,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher C. Bogdan told reporters in Washington, D.C., Wednesday.
Australia is expected to have the facility operational no later than early 2018. Japan will have its operation up and running three to five years later, or as late as 2023.
The Pentagon did not specify where the maintenance facilities would be located. Inquiries by Stars and Stripes to U.S. Forces Japan about locations were referred to U.S. Pacific Command. A spokesman at PACOM said Wednesday said he did not know the locations.
However, Bryan Bullerdick, president of defense contractor BGSE Group, said in an email to Stars and Stripes that his firm has completed an F-35 repair hangar at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni on the Japan mainland and that “more would be coming in Iwakuni.”
Bullerdick said his firm had also been contacted by a design firm in charge of constructing an F-35 hangar in Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. That firm asked to use BGSE equipment as a basis for its design.
Australian Minister for Defence David Johnston said in a news release Wednesday that the facilities in his country would likely be based at one of two east coast sites: Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley or RAAF Base Williamtown.
Amberley is near Brisbane in Queensland and is the RAAF’s largest base. Williamtown base is to the south in New South Wales and is headquarters to Australia’s Air Combat Group.
The Pentagon announced last week that heavy maintenance for F-35s in Europe would be done in Italy and Turkey.
Bogdan said that after the full fleet of F-35s are in the Pacific and Japan has completed its facilities, the Pentagon would “see if these decisions are still appropriate and if we have to make any kind of adjustments in terms of the assignment capabilities moving forward.”
The F-35 maintenance depot in the U.S. is located in Fort Worth, Texas, Bogdan said, but Japan’s will likely be configured differently than it and the one in Italy.
“Both the plant at Fort Worth and the plant in Italy are expansive in terms of distance on the ground,” he said, as compared with Japan’s vertical design.
Work will take place on a number of floors, moving through the process on elevators, Bogdan told reporters.
He said Japan is responsible for the funding and construction of its facility, which will be operated by a Japanese company. Reuters reported Wednesday that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries would handle the work in Japan initially.
Bogdan said Lockheed Martin will have oversight in Italy and Japan, with security maintained by the U.S.
olson.wyatt@stripes.com
Twitter: @WyattWOlson
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