Word: iwakuni
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...that skill is still in the service of a military that is, as the name says, a self-defense force - with most of the actual force provided by Japan's omnipresent American allies, treaty-bound to defend Japan. (The division of labor is obvious at Iwakuni - the U.S. keeps nearly half of the base to itself, shares most of the rest with Japan, which solely operates only 0.5% of the property.) Still, as the country's politics change to allow a more assertive foreign policy, Japan may not remain a stealth military power for long...
Helicopters, it turns out, do not fly upside down. I know this by hard, albeit simulated, experience. I was on the stick of an 21-ton MH-53 helicopter, one of the largest crafts of its type in the world, at the Iwakuni Air Base in western Japan. My co-pilot and instructor - an officer in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) - guided me as I lifted the copter off the ground and pointed it toward the virtual Akinada Sea. A little spin over the water, no problem, and then my instructor asked me to turn around for home...
...That change is slowly playing out at Iwakuni. The seaside MSDF facility not far from Hiroshima was a main Japanese air force base through World War II, before it was eventually taken over by the Americans, and the grounds are now shared with the U.S. Marines. It's in the midst of a $1.9 billion expansion program, paid for by the Japanese government, and its contingent of U.S. planes will eventually double to over 100 as part of an American force realignment. There's a reason for the move - Iwakuni is within striking distance of every potential hot spot...
...specter of a rearming and aggressive Japan gives the rest of Asia flashbacks to WWII, but the truth is that Iwakuni, like all Japanese military facilities, is far more defensive than offensive. While missile-armed FA-18 Hornets launch daily from the American side of the base, Japan's hangars are filled with craft like the MH-53, which sweep for mines, and the US-1A, a giant propeller-powered flying boat that has participated in hundreds of sea rescues...
...Flying the slow, obese US-1As seems like junior-varsity stuff compared to the Top Gun U.S. marine aviators at Iwakuni - until I'm put in another flight simulator. Fortunately this time a professional is at the controls, Lt. JG Yoichiro Sagawa, who takes me through the procedure of landing a whale-sized seaplane on 10-ft.-high waves. Seaplanes manage to combine the worst aspects of airsickness and seasickness, and I fear that a simulated flight might make me lose my actual lunch. But Lt. Sagawa has a much surer hand that I do. "Once you get in that...