US shows off new F-35 jets ahead of drills with South Korea

US Marines are flying F-35B fighter jets over the Pacific Ocean near the Japanese island of Okinawa ahead of US-South Korea drills, despite a diplomatic thaw with North Korea.

In a show of force, the US military is demonstrating fifth-generation F-35B Lightning II jets – the military’s newest and most expensive weaponry -- days before it will resume annual joint war games with South Korea.

F-35B warplanes are equipped with stealth technology to avoid radar and detection. They have just started their first maritime deployment on board the USS Wasp, a warship that will participate in the joint exercises starting April 1.

The exercises, code-named Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, will involve some 23,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Korean troops, according to the US Defense Department.

The drills will go ahead this year despite diplomatic efforts which are underway to organize a summit between the two Koreas, as well as a historic meeting between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

US military officials are claiming that F-35B Lightning II jets are a big advantage for the United States in any contingencies involving North Korea as they are undetectable by Pyongyang's radar, but US government data released in January indicated the planes might not be ready for combat.

The government data concluded that the operational sustainability of the F-35 fleet is "below service expectations" and the unresolved issues "would not be acceptable in combat situations."

Initially announced in 2001, the US-led F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project has ballooned into the most expensive weapons project in history. The F-35B is one of the three variants of the F-35 aircraft and the only one with the ability to land vertically like a helicopter.

"It really is an historic deployment, bringing this capability of the F-35 and the USS Wasp together to create the most significant increase in our capability the Navy and Marine Corps team has seen in our lifetime," Rear Adm. Brad Cooper told CNN on board the Wasp.

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Weapons acquisition expert Dan Grazier from the US nonprofit organization, Project on Government Oversight (POGO), dismissed the claims of the F-35's combat readiness as "provably false."

"They are just expensive prototypes," said Grazier. "They haven't even started the rigorous combat readiness testing which is a really important part of the program."

Adm. Cooper, however, insisted those issues have been resolved.

"These F-35s are combat ready. If we needed to use them in combat today, they're ready to go," he said.

"These deficiencies for these aircraft that we have deployed out here have all been resolved, they're full on and they're ready to execute combat missions if called upon."

The annual military drills were delayed to avoid clashing with the Pyeongchang Winter Games in South Korea last month.

The large-scale exercises are a perennial source of tension between the two Koreas, with Pyongyang condemning them as provocative rehearsals for an invasion of the North.

With talks underway to set up a summit between Pyongyang and Seoul, followed by a proposed face-to-face meeting between Trump and Kim, there was speculation that this year's drills might be scaled back to avoid derailing the discussions.

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