{"id":56315,"date":"2024-06-23T20:54:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-23T18:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=56315"},"modified":"2025-06-23T00:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T22:04:11","slug":"a-large-black-bat-painted-on-a-united-states-marine-corps-f-35b-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/06\/23\/a-large-black-bat-painted-on-a-united-states-marine-corps-f-35b-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"A large black bat painted on a United States Marine Corps F-35B in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The F-35 is a very advanced aircraft but in aesthetic terms there are more beautiful fighters. Furthermore, the F-35 looks like a gray-colored aircraft.<\/p>\n

US F-35A fighters flying with Polish F-16s over Poland at a time of great tension<\/a><\/rel>
\nPortugal confirms that it has begun its transition to the F-35 and indicates bad news for Spain<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

With the exception of the Danish and Belgian F-35s, all F-35s use national cockades with gray colors.<\/strong> I love the color gray, but I confess that sometimes I miss the colorful decorations that fighter planes carried decades ago, especially those of the US Navy, which drew colorful liveries on their tails and fuselages.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Currently,the aircraft painting process is related to its radar signature<\/strong>. Some fighter models, especially those with stealth technology, have paint that helps partially absorb radar signals. That is why seeing colorful decorations on these fighters is even more difficult than a few decades ago<\/strong>, when low-visibility paints began to be applied to military aircraft.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, there are still exceptions. As Stefano D'Urso pointed out<\/a> this Friday, a few days ago a Marine F-35B flew in Japan with a large black bat painted on it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This Thursday, the DVIDshub.net portal of the US Armed Forces published a series of photos from this flight<\/a> taken by Corporal Chloe Johnson of the US Marine Corps. According to the US Indo-Pacific Command<\/a>, the flight had take place June 11 at Marine Naval Air Station Iwakuni<\/strong>. The pilot was Lt. Col. Alexander \"Oprah\" Mellman, commander of Squadron VMFA-242, who was making his final flight after 20 years of service in the Marines.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

VMFA-242's nickname is \"Bats\"<\/strong>, so the squadron commander's plane has been decorated with an oversized version of the bat that serves as that unit's emblem, colored black and with red reds. This detail has created a great sensation among F-35 fans<\/strong>. It was about time to see such an attractive decoration on one of these planes. Hopefully one day we can see something even more colorful on these planes: some Spanish roundels.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The F-35 is a very advanced aircraft but in aesthetic terms there are more beautiful fighters. Furthermore, the F-35 looks like a gray-colored aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,11545],"tags":[22146,12880,7072,15528,22147,673],"class_list":["post-56315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-navy","tag-iwakuni","tag-japan","tag-lockheed-martin-f-35-lightning-ii","tag-marine-fighter-attack-squadron-242-vmfa-242","tag-mcas-iwakuni","tag-us-marine-corps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}