The F-16 really is a beautiful piece of engineering.
It is the Silver Wraith of the skies.
The Drive:
The four U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jets that recently flew a mission over the highly contested South China Sea were photographed landing at Yokota Air Base in Japan, en route to their home base at Misawa. The images confirm that these jets were armed for counter-air operations with a heavy load of live air-to-air missiles. The jets’ appearance in the South China Sea last week coincided with the biggest presence of People’s Liberation Army aircraft in Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in recent times: 25 aircraft in all.
The Viper photos, taken by Iori, whose tweets can be found here, detail the jets’ extensive armament. Each jet was armed with five beyond- visual-range AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles and a single short- range AIM-9 Sidewinder — one of the latest AIM-9X missiles on some of the jets, or an older AIM-9M on the others. Under the belly, each aircraft was fitted with an AN/ALQ-184 electronic countermeasures self- protection pod. All of the weapons were live, a relatively uncommon sight, especially over Japan, and indicated that this was much more than a simple long-distance training mission and, instead, a calculated signal to the Chinese military and possibly even a contingency operation.
As evidenced by the AN/ASQ-213 HARM Targeting System, the distinctive pod-mounted sensor found under the right side of the aircraft’s intakes, these jets are the radar-killing Wild Weasel F-16CM versions but, on this occasion at least, they were carrying maximum air-to-air load-outs. That these live missiles were then taken over the sensitive South China Sea suggests a willingness to demonstrate U.S. ability to generate defensive combat air patrols (CAPs) in proximity to Taiwan, as well as other hotspots in the region.
The photos were taken on April 17, when all four of the jets that had been involved in the South China Sea flight on April 12 touched down at Yokota Air Base, in eastern Tokyo, at around 3:00 PM local time, presumably for a fuel stop, before departing again around 5:00 PM. They then flew home to Misawa Air Base, their home station, around 400 miles further north.
The American people should be asking if a war with China is actually desirable, but there seems to be no interest in that question.
The people should ask: “How is this good for America?”
Instead, people seem to be totally unaware that it is even a question they should be asking.
Most right-leaning people in America are still stuck in a very unfortunate fantasy wherein Joe Biden is actually an agent of the Chinese. This would mean that China, through their control of Joe Biden, is running a massive smear campaign against itself, and threatening a war with itself.
Schizophrenically, right-wingers who more or less deny the coronavirus will also claim that China sent the coronavirus as some kind of biological weapon.
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