F-35B Lightning II jets from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 542 touched down on USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) on Feb. 10, 2026, marking the first time the amphibious assault ship has conducted F-35B flight operations. The landings mark another step in the Navy and Marine Corps effort to spread fifth-generation stealth fighters across the amphibious fleet, a push that has gained momentum since USS Tripoli (LHA 7) achieved the same milestone four years earlier.
Kearsarge Welcomes Its First F-35Bs
The Feb. 10 recovery was a first for Kearsarge, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship that has spent decades operating helicopters and AV-8B Harriers but had never hosted the F-35B. Aircraft assigned to VMFA-542 landed aboard the ship in what the Navy described as the vessel’s inaugural F-35B operations. The event required close coordination between the ship’s crew and Marine aviation personnel to align flight deck procedures with the Lightning II’s short takeoff and vertical landing profile. The Navy has not publicly detailed all of the specific adjustments made on board, but integrating the F-35B typically requires careful attention to deck handling, safety zones, and thermal/jet-blast considerations.
What makes this integration notable is not simply the novelty of a first landing. The F-35B brings advanced sensors and low-observable features that can expand the strike and intelligence options available to an amphibious ready group. Before this event, Kearsarge primarily contributed rotary-wing lift and close air support through older platforms; after demonstrating F-35B recoveries, it has taken an initial step toward supporting fifth-generation fixed-wing operations from its deck. Analysts often argue this kind of integration can affect how commanders distribute forces, because an amphibious ship that can support F-35B operations may be able to provide additional surveillance and precision-strike options alongside its traditional troop and helicopter roles.
Tripoli Set the Template Starting in 2022
Kearsarge is not the first amphibious ship to go through this process. USS Tripoli (LHA 7) recovered F-35Bs for the first time on Jan. 11, 2022, and subsequently certified for fixed-wing operations after a structured training period with Marine aviation units. That certification confirmed Tripoli could safely and repeatedly launch and recover the jets under a range of conditions, turning the ship into a proven platform for fifth-generation sorties. The process included repeated cycles of day and night operations, emergency drills, and maintenance checks to validate that every department on board could support sustained F-35B activity.
Tripoli’s experience offers a useful comparison for what Kearsarge may face next. Certification involves more than a single successful landing; ship crews must demonstrate proficiency in ordnance handling, fuel management, and flight deck choreography specific to the F-35B, while aviation units refine approach patterns and vertical landing techniques tailored to that particular hull. Tripoli completed that entire sequence before deploying with the jets in an operational capacity, giving planners a concrete example of the time and training required. Whether Kearsarge follows the same timeline or an accelerated version remains unclear based on available reporting, but the Tripoli precedent suggests additional qualification steps lie ahead if the Navy intends to field the ship as a full-fledged F-35B platform rather than as a one-off test venue.
Night Operations Expand the Envelope
Beyond daytime recoveries, the Navy and Marines have been pushing F-35B integration into more demanding conditions. On Nov. 29, 2025, U.S. Marines from VMFA-242 and Navy sailors conducted F-35 night flight operations on USS Tripoli’s flight deck while the ship was underway in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility. Night recoveries on a moving ship are among the most difficult tasks in naval aviation, requiring precise lighting protocols, pilot skill with night-vision systems, and flawless deck crew execution in near-total darkness. The video-recorded evolutions showed aircraft cycling through launches and recoveries while deck crews managed signaling, safety perimeters, and refueling under limited visibility.
The U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility spans a large portion of the Western Pacific. Conducting night F-35B operations while underway in that theater underscores an emphasis on being able to generate fixed-wing sorties in more demanding conditions, not just in daylight. A ship that can generate stealth sorties around the clock, rather than only during daylight, roughly doubles its combat utility without adding a single additional airframe. That distinction matters when planners weigh whether a single amphibious ship can hold adversary assets at risk independently of a full carrier strike group, especially in scenarios where weather, distance, or threat conditions might limit the availability of other airbases.
Why Spreading F-35Bs Across More Hulls Matters
The broader pattern here is deliberate. Each time the Navy qualifies another amphibious ship for F-35B operations, it adds a node to a distributed network of mobile airfields. Traditional carrier aviation concentrates enormous striking power on a small number of supercarriers, each of which represents a high-value target. Amphibious assault ships are smaller and individually less capable, but they are also more numerous and harder for an adversary to track and target simultaneously. Distributing F-35Bs across these platforms complicates an opponent’s targeting problem because it forces them to account for stealth fighters appearing from multiple, dispersed locations rather than a single predictable source, making surprise strikes and flexible responses more feasible.
This concept, often discussed under the label of distributed maritime operations, depends on each ship being able to operate the jets reliably and independently. Kearsarge joining the list of F-35B-capable vessels expands the pool of ships that can fill that role, even if only in limited numbers at first. The practical effect for fleet commanders is greater flexibility in how they assign ships to different theaters: an amphibious ready group with organic F-35B capacity can provide its own air superiority umbrella and precision strike, reducing its dependence on carrier-based fighters and freeing those carriers for other missions. Over time, as more hulls complete fixed-wing certifications and crews gain experience, the amphibious force could function as a web of smaller, stealth-enabled platforms that support deterrence, crisis response, and high-end combat operations alike.
Gaps in the Public Record
Several details about the Kearsarge landings remain absent from the public record. No official reporting has identified the specific pilots who flew the Feb. 10 sorties, and no video or photographic evidence from the Kearsarge event has surfaced in the way that Department of Defense–hosted footage documented Tripoli’s night operations. The Navy has also not disclosed whether Kearsarge has begun a formal fixed-wing certification process or whether the Feb. 10 landings were a standalone integration exercise. Without that information, it is difficult to assess how quickly the ship could deploy with F-35Bs in an operational setting or whether the recent flights were primarily about familiarizing the crew with basic procedures.
One assumption worth questioning in the current coverage is that a first landing automatically signals imminent deployment. Tripoli’s path shows that moving from initial recovery to full certification can take sustained effort, and nothing in the available Kearsarge reporting confirms that the ship has already embarked on that full progression. Until the Navy releases additional details about follow-on tests, training cycles, or planned embarkations, outside observers will have to treat the Feb. 10 event as an important but early milestone rather than a definitive indicator of near-term combat readiness. Even so, the landing demonstrates that another amphibious hull has crossed the threshold into fifth-generation operations, reinforcing a broader shift in how the sea services intend to project power from their amphibious fleet.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
