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Japan, U.S. eye Raptor exercise in April

TOKYO — Japan and the U.S. are close to finalizing plans to conduct the first joint exercise in mid-April involving F-22A Raptor stealth fighters temporarily deployed in Okinawa, a senior Defense Ministry official said April 6.

''We are heading in the direction of wrapping up by the end of next week the issue of conducting a joint exercise,'' Toshio Tamogami, commander of the Air Defense Command, said at a news conference.

The planned exercise comes on the heels of growing concern among residents living near Kadena Air Base in Okinawa about noise and possible accidents involving the F-22s, a squadron of which have been deployed to the base since February.

Assembly members in the town of Kadena have unanimously passed a resolution opposing the deployment on the grounds that it poses greater risk to local residents in the form of noise and accidents.

The joint exercise is to be held in airspace around Okinawa, with Japanese Air Self-Defense Force F-15 fighters and other aircraft based in the city of Naha expected to participate, according to ministry officials.

The state-of-the-art F-22 can evade radar detection and is equipped for ground attack, electronic attack and signals intelligence roles. A senior Defense Ministry official said it can perform as well as ''four or five F-15s combined.'' The aging F-15 is Japan's current mainstay fighter.

By conducting dogfights in the exercise, ''We can learn such lessons as how the F-22 might look [on the radar] and how we should cope with it,'' Tamogami said. ''Not only will we size up the level of the F-22's abilities, we can also learn whether our tactics can be used against the F-22.''

Twelve F-22 fighters have flown to the Okinawa base from the U.S. since Feb. 17 in their first deployment at a base outside the U.S. The deployment will continue through May, Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said in late February.