Chief Enrico Dagsindal holds a small model of an F-35C Lighting II while Petty Officer 1st Class Caroline Lui works on the snow sculpture for the 75th Annual Sapporo Snow Festival. (Matthew Fischer/U.S. Navy)
U.S. Navy sailors carved a replica of an F-35C Lightning II for their entry in the 75th annual Sapporo Snow Festival on Japan’s northernmost main island.
The C-model is the Navy’s carrier-capable variant and the fifth-generation fighter. Strike Fighter Squadron 147, the Argonauts, arrived last year at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, near Hiroshima, as part of Carrier Air Wing 5.
The eight-member sculpting team included sailors from Navy Air Facility Misawa, just across the Tsugaru Strait from Hokkaido, and from Yokosuka Naval Base, south of Tokyo.
“People up here are super friendly to the U.S. Navy,” lead designer and sculptor Petty Officer 1st Class Caroline Lui, of Arcadia, Calif., told Stars and Stripes by phone Thursday.
Petty Officer 1st Class Caroline Lui works on the Navy's entry for the 75th annual Sapporo Snow Festival. (Seth Koenig/U.S. Navy)
Petty Officer 1st Class Hernan Hernandez works on the Navy's snow sculpture for the 75th annual Sapporo Snow Festival. (Matthew Fischer/U.S. Navy)
“Everybody who stopped by the sculpture has been really enthusiastic,” she said. “They’ve been pointing their fingers at the sculpture and be like ‘sugoi’ and, like, some of them even know what it is without reading the sign.”
In Japanese, “sugoi” can mean “amazing” or “excellent.”
Festival visitors are invited to wear the yellow coat and headgear of carrier “shooters” — the sailors who signal fighter pilots before catapult launches — for photos with the sculpture, said Lt. Cmdr. Seth Koenig, spokesman for Task Force 70.
“Some of them even get into sort of the shooter pose, kind of signaling the F-35 taking off,” he said by phone Thursday. “So that’s been one of the interactive elements that we’ve brought up here for the snow festival this year.”
Petty Officer 1st Class Caroline Lui works on the Navy's entry for the 75th annual Sapporo Snow Festival. (Seth Koenig/U.S. Navy)
The team used a miniature clay model of an F-35C as a reference while sculpting over five days, contending with accumulating snow and warming temperatures, Lui said.
“I’ve been sculpting for 15 years, like on my own time, and being able to do it for the Navy was one of the most amazing things I’ve been able to do in my Navy career so far,” she said. “It’s my first time sculpting snow, and it’s also my first time up in Sapporo.”
This marks the 40th year the Navy has participated in the world-renowned festival. Last year’s team sculpted the USS Gerald R. Ford, the first of its class and the world’s largest aircraft carrier.
“The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force had a group up here in force that did a really impressive sculpture of a historical mansion,” Koenig said.
The Sapporo Snow Festival began in 1950 and attracts sculptors from around the world to Hokkaido. The works will remain on display until the festival concludes Tuesday.
“I’ve also learned a lot of techniques about snow sculpture now that I would like to bring back,” Lui said. “But if not, I still came away with a lot of great experiences and hopefully we left a great impression on people up here.”
