The high-tech F-35B stealth fighter aircraft will make its maiden deployment in late 2017 patrolling the western Pacific Ocean, David Larter of Navy Times reports.
The Marine Corps version of the troubled fighter jet, which can take off and land vertically, will deploy onboard a Navy amphibious assault ship, which will be supported by a group of at least three destroyers. The announcement was made Tuesday by the head of the Navy's Pacific Fleet, according to the Times.
The squadron piloting the first batch of fleet-ready F-35's will be VMA-211, a Yuma, Ariz.-based unit that's part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, as USNI previously reported.
Right now, the Marine Corps' fixed-wing aircraft of choice is the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the AV-8B Harrier II "Jump Jet", a slower aircraft first introduced in the late 1960s that can also take off and land vertically. The F-35B was declared operational in July 2015 and is set to replace the entire Harrier fleet by 2025.
But the new F-35B comes at a heavy price: Around $104 million a pop.
The overall F-35 program — which ballooned to over $1 trillion — has also come under heavy criticism, most notably from the Pentagon's top weapons tester, who issued a scathing report back in February.
"This document is probably the most extraordinary review of any weapon that has come out of the [testing] office," defense analyst Pierre Sprey told Stars & Stripes. "The fact that this escaped from the Pentagon is extraordinary. . . You really need to get a sense for what it takes to put out something as critical as this in the face of a 1.3- trillion dollar monster."
Still, the movement of the next generation fighter aircraft to the Pacific seems to be a response to China's moves in the South China Sea, where it has aggressively expanded its presence in recent years. Earlier this month, China sent 16 of its J-11 advanced aircraft to a disputed island in the region, which a US defense official called "unprecedented."
