The squadron got to hone its fighting skills earlier this month at Northern Edge, a 12-day training exercise at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.
The exercise included the Air Force's 5th-generation F-22 Raptor, as well as numerous fourth-generation fighters, including the F/A-18 Super Hornet, the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
In the exercise, the largest VFMA-121 has participated in since moving forward to Iwakuni, the F-35s were able to drill on joint operations in the Western Pacific, focusing on aerial interdiction, strike warfare, air-to-air, and offensive counter-air missions.
Rusnok said the F-35's kill ratio from the exercise was not immediately available, though one of the missions he flew racked up eight kills and zero losses, he said, a fairly indicative statistic.
But he doesn't particularly like to talk about those stats.
"Everyone likes to focus on that air-to-air piece. It robs that statistic out of a bigger scenario," he said. "You never hear about the surface-to-air kills we got, the enemy systems degraded. There's a bigger picture."
The exercise, Rusnok said, also tested the F-35's ability to create a "God's-eye view" of the battlespace, with its ability to network and transmit information. Northern Edge showed, he said, that the capability remained strong, even in a dense radio frequency environment that hindered transmissions.
"Where other air systems have problems, we're able to cut through that so easily," he said. "Our ability to resist that kind of attack on the electromagnetic spectrum is huge."
