The Air Force confirmed that the first overseas deployment for the F-35A will be a TSP to the Pacific. They didn't give a time-frame or location, but
the most likely locations will be either Kadena, or Osan.
The F-35 just completed its first large scale deployment to Red Flag, where it performed better than expected. The deployment to the Pacific will be a
precursor to their first combat deployment.
There isn't. You don't go from zero to combat. You deploy somewhere there isn't combat and work out any bugs you might encounter. Then you deploy to a
combat area.
The first Asian F-22 deployment was a prime example. They "deployed" all over the US with no problems. When they crossed the International Dateline,
their navigation system crashed due to buggy code. They had to follow their tankers back to Hawaii and wait a week to try again while the code was
fixed.
Imagine if they had been on a critical mission, or were being rushed to combat and that happened.
Ah confusion from the Pentagon. In December SecAF said they'd go to Europe first. Today a note was given to Congress that had the words "to include"
in the one line on it about deploying them. So now it's up in the air if they're going to Europe then Asia, or Asia then Europe, or both at once.