June 19, 2007: Although the Japanese F-2 fighter (very similar to the F-16 ) has been in service for seven years, it only dropped live bombs for the first time this Summer. This is so because Japan has no training facility in its own territory for live bombings. Thus it's only when Japanese warplanes are flown to foreign training areas, that they can they practice using real bombs. For this practice bombing, the Japanese F2 aircraft flew to an American air base in Guam, in the Central Pacific.

This Japanese policy is nothing new. In the last sixty years, there have been only three times where Japanese warplanes dropped live munitions. The rest of the time, they practice with inert munitions, and simulated (by computer) bombs. Japanese aircraft have not been in combat since World War II, so there's no way of knowing if their training practices have had an adverse effect on combat effectiveness.