The ongoing government shutdown hasn’t grounded the United States Air Force. So far—at least until servicemembers’ paychecks stop arriving—it is mostly business as usual, as characterized by the latest Bomber Task Force (BTF) mission, which began last week.

It remains unclear how many support personnel were also dispatched to the Land of the Rising Sun or for how long the B-1Bs might remain. As with past missions, the service didn’t give advance notice, but this time it may be carried out in a de facto stealth mode.

The United States Air Force currently operates 45 B-1B Lancers. The aircraft formally entered service 40 years ago as a nuclear bomber, but following the end of the Cold War, it can only carry conventional weapons.

For the second time this calendar year, the Air Force deployed multiple Rockwell B-1B Lancer long-range bombers to Misawa Air Base, Japan. As the new fiscal year for the federal government and with it the Department of Defense (DoD) began on October 1, this could be the first BTF 2026 mission.

However, the numbering of these missions in these final three months of the year is sometimes confusing.  The more important point is that even with a government shutdown now entering its fourth week—already

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