{"id":2593496,"date":"2026-06-24T10:30:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/first-f-35a-wild-weasel-ww-tail-misawa\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:58:13","slug":"first-f-35a-wild-weasel-ww-tail-misawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/first-f-35a-wild-weasel-ww-tail-misawa\/","title":{"rendered":"The First F-35 in Wild Weasel War Paint"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><p>On 16 June a brand-new F-35A lifted off from Fort Worth, flew for about an hour, and came home behind a chase jet. Routine \u2014 except for two black letters painted on its tail: <strong>WW<\/strong>.<\/p><p>Those letters make aircraft 24-5970 the first F-35 ever to wear the Wild Weasel tail code. It is bound for the 35th Fighter Wing at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan, where it will take up one of the oldest and most dangerous jobs in air warfare: flying straight at the enemy\u2019s radars and missiles, and killing them.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f3f4f6;border-radius:8px;padding:18px 22px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;color:#333;font-size:15px;letter-spacing:.3px\">QUICK FACTS<\/p><table style=\"border-collapse:collapse;font-size:15px;line-height:1.5\"><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Aircraft<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#222\">F-35A Lightning II, serial 24-5970<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>First flight<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#222\">16 June 2026, NAS JRB Fort Worth<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>First of its kind<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#222\">First F-35 to wear the \u201cWW\u201d Wild Weasel tail code<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Headed to<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#222\">35th Fighter Wing, Misawa Air Base, Japan<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Mission<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#222\">Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Tail motto<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#222\">\u201cFILO\u201d \u2014 First In, Last Out<\/td><\/tr><tr><td style=\"padding:6px 14px 6px 0;color:#555;vertical-align:top;white-space:nowrap\"><strong>Wing transition<\/strong><\/td><td style=\"padding:6px 0;color:#222\">36 F-16s being replaced by 48 F-35As<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/div>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Two letters with a deadly pedigree<\/h2><p>\u201cWild Weasel\u201d dates to the Vietnam War, when specially equipped jets went hunting for North Vietnamese surface-to-air missile sites \u2014 deliberately baiting the radars into switching on so they could be destroyed. The unofficial motto of the men who flew those missions, \u201cYGBSM,\u201d is unprintable in a family publication. The 35th Fighter Wing made the heritage official on 18 June 1996, when it swapped its \u201cMJ\u201d tail flash for \u201cWW.\u201d<\/p><p>This particular jet wears more than a code. Across the top of the tail is \u201cFILO\u201d \u2014 First In, Last Out, the wing\u2019s motto. And rather than belonging to a single squadron, it carries the badge of the 13th Fighter Squadron on one side of the tail and the 14th on the other: it is the Operations Group commander\u2019s aircraft, flying the colours of both of Misawa\u2019s Wild Weasel units at once.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px\"><img data-opt-id=1341136362  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/06\/f-35a-misawa-13th-fighter-squadron-arrival.jpg\" alt=\"F-35A Lightning IIs of the 35th Fighter Wing at Misawa Air Base\" style=\"display:block;width:100%!important;max-width:100%!important;height:auto!important;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The 35th Fighter Wing\u2019s first F-35As at Misawa, Japan. The wing is swapping 36 F-16s for 48 Lightning IIs. U.S. Air Force photo \/ DVIDS.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The 13th Fighter Squadron \u2014 the \u201cPanther Pack\u201d \u2014 traces its Weasel identity directly to Korat, Thailand, where its predecessor flew SAM-hunting missions in the late 1960s. Nearly sixty years later, the same squadron is taking the mission into the stealth age.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;The F-35 was tailor made to be a weasel platform. Where legacy platforms performed the Wild Weasel mission with bolted-on sensors or weapons, the F-35 was built from the ground up as a sensor platform with the sensor fusion and quarterback capability we bring to the fight.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Lt. Col. John Widmer<\/strong> &mdash; Commander, 13th Fighter Squadron (U.S. Air Force release)<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why the F-35 is a natural Weasel<\/h2><p>The argument for the F-35 in this role is simple: it was born to do it. The F-16 flew the modern Weasel mission with sensors and targeting pods bolted on after the fact. The F-35 is, at its core, a flying sensor \u2014 stealthy, packed with an electronically scanned radar that can do electronic attack, and built to fuse everything it sees and \u201cquarterback\u201d the fight for everyone around it.<\/p><p>There is one catch. The dedicated anti-radar missile the jet will eventually carry internally \u2014 the AARGM-ER, successor to the long-serving HARM \u2014 is not in service yet. For now the F-35A\u2019s Weasel punch leans on its radar\u2019s electronic-attack tricks and stand-off bombs. The sensors are ready; the perfect weapon is still on its way.<\/p><h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">A Wild Weasel base in Japan<\/h2><p>Misawa is converting from 36 F-16s to 48 F-35As, and 24-5970 will join the first four Lightning IIs that touched down there on 28 March 2026 \u2014 the first U.S. F-35s permanently based in Japan, and the first stealth fighters stationed at any Pacific Air Forces base in the Western Pacific.<\/p><p>The timing is not subtle. As China fields ever-denser air-defence networks, the United States is parking the aircraft built to punch holes in them within easy reach of the region. The Wild Weasels are back \u2014 and this time they are invisible.<\/p><p><em>Sources: The Aviationist; U.S. Air Force \/ DVIDS (35th Fighter Wing); Air & Space Forces Magazine; Stars and Stripes.<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wild-weasels-first-in-last-out-sead-vietnam-ygbsm\/\">Wild Weasels: First In, Last Out<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/usmc-f-35b-finnish-highway-ramstein-flag-2026\/\">Marines Land F-35Bs on a Finnish Highway<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 16 June a brand-new F-35A lifted off from Fort Worth, flew for about an hour, and came home behind a chase jet. Routine \u2014 except for two black letters painted on its tail: WW. Those letters make aircraft 24-5970 the first F-35 ever to wear the Wild Weasel tail code. It is bound for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":2593400,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[664,670],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2593496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military-aviation","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The First F-35 in Wild Weasel War Paint<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"F-35A 24-5970 is the first Lightning II to wear the \u201cWW\u201d Wild Weasel tail code, bound for Misawa, Japan and the deadly SEAD mission.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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