Last week, for the first time ever, US Air Force F-35s launched from the USS George H.W. Bush flew several hundred miles over the Mediterranean and linked up with Israeli F-35s to simulate a combined attack on surface-to-air missile batteries in the Negev desert.
As they neared the target, accompanying F-16s and F-15s peeled away to attack as many as ten fourth-plus-generation aircraft posing as the defenders of an imagined enemy airspace.