Japan defense chief visits ship being remodeled into aircraft carrier

Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi went aboard the Maritime Self-Defense Force's Izumo helicopter carrier on Monday to see progress in retrofitting the ship into an full-fledged aircraft carrier.Kishi inspected the deck of the Izumo, which has been reinforced to withstand the heat emitted by F-35Bs during short landing and vertical takeoff procedures, and was briefed on test runs using U.S. aircraft conducted last month."It is absolutely necessary that we are capable of launching and landing F-35Bs at sea in order to successfully carry out defense policy, so that we can deal with the new…READ FULL ARTICLE