Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office have delivered the 700th production F-35 jet.
The firm say here that with more than 700 F-35s now delivered to U.S. and international operators, “the impact of the global fleet is far reaching ā significantly enhancing the allied joint force”.
“The F-35 remains a premier air system of choice for three of the armed forces, seven international partners and six foreign military sales customers. It routinely demonstrates high-end capabilities at the hands of our joint and international warfighters, and it’s performing in combat operations from land and sea,” saidĀ Pentagon press secretary John F. Kirby.
Today, F-35s are operating from 21 bases around the globe. More than 1,460 pilots and 11,025 maintainers have been trained and the F-35 fleet has surpassed 430,000 cumulative flight hours.
One of the most visible examples of international F-35 collaboration is the United Kingdomās Carrier Strike Group deployment. The United Kingdomās HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrierĀ beganĀ its initial deployment in May 2021, withĀ BritishĀ andĀ U.S. Marine Corps F-35BsĀ aboard.
The UK recently two aircraft carriers at seaĀ withĀ F-35Bs aboard ā following trials onboardĀ of HMS Prince of Wales, Britainās newest aircraft carrier.
Lockheed Martin also say that by 2035, more thanĀ 450 F-35s will be stationed on the European continent, including 48 U.S. Air Force F-35As. NATO members with F-35 programs of record include Belgium,Ā Canada,Ā Denmark,Ā Italy, theĀ Netherlands,Ā Norway,Ā Poland, theĀ United KingdomĀ andĀ United States.
SwitzerlandĀ recently selectedĀ the F-35 as the nationās next fighter platform, production of theĀ first F-35 for PolandĀ is scheduled to begin in 2022 and the first aircraft is expected to be delivered in 2024. Preliminary talks are also underway with severalĀ potential new F-35 customersĀ in Europe.
Excellent! That’s a fair chunk of UK workshare alright.
The fact that weāve ordered less than Italy and even the UAE is immensely embarrassing though. With a 70b budget we should be able to achieve far more.
The UAE does not have the hundreds or even thousands of other items on the MoD budget to pay for, maintain, the personnel to feed and pay a wage and other conditions. Also do they actually use them on ops around the world or are they sitting in the desert looking shiny like a Sultans car collection.
I believe we end up with 70 F35 myself.
Strangely, there was talk at the time the deal was done to effect that US had impossed a no overseas based operational deployments obligation on the sale agreement. Training to be ok but not Ops.
70b? is that dollars? 40b which is 2% of GDP.
I think he means 70 aircraft…
That makes more sense š
Maybe China will buy some ļ»æšļ»æ
āAccording to Janes forecasts, Chinaās defence budget will grow by about 65% ā from approximately USD258 billion to USD426 billion ā between 2021 and 2030.ā
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/defence/latest/airshow-china-2021
Shame I’m getting too old to learn Mandarin…
The only Mandarin I know comes in little cans, usually in light syrup.
FSL said he expects final number between 60 and 80.
I would expect between 80 and 90, that’s enough for four 12 aircraft squadrons, an operational reserve, OCU, trails and maintenance fleets…
Especially if they will be augmented by UCAV’s.
I’d take that as a nice capable fixed wing carrier fleet.
Now all we need is a few extra helicopters, or some VTOL UAV’s for ASW ops, VERTREP etc.
Cheers CR
We will be buying more
Hi eclipse,
I’m afraid our budget isn’t Ā£70b – at least not yet.
The follow quotes are from the House of Commons Library:
“The Spring 2020 Spending Reivew describes the funding settlement as being āan increase in defence spending of Ā£24 billion in cash terms over the next four years against the 2020/21 budgetā.”
However, “Ben Zaranko of the IFS, has suggested that these figures are potentially misleading. He believes that it āwould be more accurate to say that by 2024/25, defence spending will be Ā£7 billion higherā in real terms compared with 2019/20.”
This is because, “it appears the Government may have taken the cash difference between 2020/21 and each subsequent year and added them up. This is opposed to the more conventional method which simply takes the difference between a starting and ending year.”
2020 / 21 the MoD will spend about Ā£41.5b, apparently. What we really spend in 2024 / 25 will become clearer in the next couple of years, but my guess is it is not going to be what we all hoped it would be…
Cheers CR
sorry, Iām in LA right now so Iām thinking in dollars. I believe U.K. total defence expenditure came to USD72.2 last year according to NATO.
Iām optimistic about Brexit, so if the pound recovers to 1.65 ish that will represent a boost, at least in measurement. It wonāt play that big of a role since most of our stuff is built in the U.K. but it might mean that we can get more stuff OTS. Like missiles, artillery, those AIP submarines Iāve been wishing for, maybe even it might play a role F-35s. However, even if the budget increases by only Ā£7b, a Ā£49b budget would still be around 80 in dollars.
lots of F35b’s going to be out there offering increased interoperability between like minded nations. cheap carriers and F35b is the future. although a nice thought we don’t need to send out a fully british carrier force and when would that be really required.
Didn’t Italy cancel almost all of theirs? The UK hasn’t cancelled any and will definitly order atleast 100 over the lifetime of the carriers as there are no plans for Tempest to take off or land from one and that capability really needs to be built in from the start.
The F35 certainly is capturing allied imaginations…
The up side is that it really does open up considerable opportunity for great cooperation between allies. The example of the USMC operating from HMS Queen Elizabeth could easily form the basic operating model for operations between, say the UK and Italy – something that has apparently already been suggested and form what I have read is being looked at. Japan might be another country we could collaborate with.
Having said that I would not expect the level of intergration with other allies to be as close as it is with the USMC because there are US Eyes Only facilities designed into the QEC. So any deployment with other allies would probably only work with a different, probably more restrictive, set of political limits set on it. Likely, be of a shorter duration as a result.
Nevertheless, interesting times a head.
Cheers CR
I was not aware there are ‘US Eyes Only’ facilities designed into the QEC- to what extent exactly -how can that be onboard a UK sovereign ship? That implies that there has always been the desire/requirement to have USMC on board and utilising the platform in order to fulfil its capacity. This is contradictory to the rhetoric that accompanied their inital deployment onboard as ‘a stop gap until we have our own capabilty’ and ‘a way of training and capacity testing the platform’. If it is envisaged that they will be a permanent fixture I will be extremenly annoyed. It shows a lack of commitment to the whole purpose of the carriers as an extention of sovereign power, whose sovereignty exactly?
It has been there from design stage. There is no plan to permanently have USMC on the platform but helps a lot if they have their own planning/control room when they are on board. The advantage of having a big carrier that gives you these kinds of options.
Thanks for clarifying that – appreciated. Hopefully in years to come those assets will be redundant.
It’s essentially a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) onboard for the USMC. The US (and the UK forces onboard) have to be able to receive their own comms using their own decoding and dissemination platforms.
very interesting. hope it would not lead to a conflict of interests for ship and aircrew. i am completely civilian so just asking are the F35’s american and british jointly under one air commander
Yes US forces onboard are under UK command
How can it be there’s an American Embassy in London? Isn’t London sovereign British territory?
Last time i looked London wasn’t a military asset used for project of power or for unilateral purposes. However if you are going to be pedantic I believe the American embassy isnt technically part of London , as all embassys are considered an extention of the country they represent
Hi grizzler,
Just to expand on what DRS has already said the USMC are ‘guests’ on our carriers. All be it very intergrated members of the team.
The intention is that should the UK require the carriers for purely sovereign operations then the USMC would not be embarked and the UK would fill the ‘duty’ carrier with aircraft – assuming we buy enough of course!
Likewise, if the US want their marines for a sovereign operation they would not be embarked on a UK carrier.
The interesting part comes when the carrier is deployed on a joint mission and one or other ally unexpectedly needs their assets back for operations. I am sure there are contingencies in place but whatever the case the joint operation would come to a swift end…
There are US bases all over the world as well as friendly countries and of course the USN still has a global presence so handing back the USMC squadron in a hurry should be possible if a tad disruptive.
We also have a second carrier, thank goodness, so there are things you could do with that. Two ships with ‘smaller’ air wings or use the second carrier to ‘deliver’ extra aircraft to make up a full air wing. A bit like carriers delivering Spitfires to Malta in WW2.
Of course, the middle ground is that the allies would politically support which ever had the operational requirement – if the situation allowed. E.g. if we needed the carrier and a few F35 to support a Commonwealth Country against extremists then the USMC might come along for the ride, but sit on the sidelines. Might be a bit more challenging for a RN carrier to allow USMC planes to mount operations if we were not participating, but we have allowed USAF planes mount operations from bases in the UK – so possible I think.
Hopefully we will never find out, but if we do I suspect the RN and USN / USMC have it worked out in principal and are more than capable of dealing with whatever [realistic] operational challenge is thrown their way. Provided the politicians can agree š
Cheers CR
“Likewise, if the US want their marines for a sovereign operation they would not be embarked on a UK carrier.ā
The question is would the US launch an operation from a UK carrier without telling us first, especially if our politicians disagree wĆth it, like what happened in Iran some time ago?
Hi Meirion,
That is an interesting question. However, I think there are a number of reason why it would be unlikely to happen, although perhaps not impossible. Firstly, there are the practical issues, and I don’t have all the answers here, but here are three I can think of.
Firstly, the ship has to be in the right place at the right time. We share many of the same concerns as our American cousins and therefore our carriers are likely to be in areas of interest to the US. However, that isn’t the same as being in the right place at the right time. We could be in the Med keeping an eye on the Middle East when the US needs suddenly needs stuff in the Far East, for example. One operational carrier can only be in one place at a time and it is a big old world…
Secondly, the ship needs to be undertaking air ops e.g. facing the right way for the planes to take off and land, but more than that the UK crew would quickly become aware that the US contingent were loading their planes with extra fuel and live weapons because they are working in the same work spaces as the UK crew. The weapons are in the same magazine I believe and the fuel comes from the same fuel bunkers. So we’d know something was up…
Thirdly, the US planes would be reliant on the UK crew to get from the hangar to the flight deck. Then the US planners would have to file a flight plan with the UK flight ops otherwise they risk not getting back on the ship – because it will have moved and they’ll need to know where it is going to plan the mission.
Of course, they could lie to the British and come up with some cover story, but that is a whole lot different to just keeping shtum about a mission. So I think it highly unlikely that they would push the relationship that far – but not impossible.
The UK would react I think especially if our people were put in harms way without any reasonable warning or political heads up. In effect the US would be trampling all over our sovereignty in a manner that endangered our people and in a worste case scenario get us involved in a war without our consent. That is hugely different to mount a bombing raid from UK base 1,000 of miles away and would certainly put the special relationship to the test !
It is fair to say we need the US more than they need us, but there is mutual need and shared values. The USN is struggling with carrier availability. Nuclear power is expensive and takes a lot of down time to keep safe. Refueling a US nuclear carrier apparently (wikipedia) is undertaken once in a carrier’s operational lifetime and can take up to 3 years. There is plenty of other maintenance required around and on the reator to keep it safe and these are undertaken along with other standard ship maintenance work, but comments on here have suggested that they do add extra time to maintenance schedule. The US are also very short of trained people at the shipyards which is having a big impact on maintenance times according to a number of articles online.
All of which mean the US carrier fleet is stretched to the limit with some carrier doing double tours on station – not go for retention or morale at all. So whilst 12 USMC F35’s floating around on a British carrier may not seem like much to us I think it is seriously appreciated by the USN / USMC. P*****g the Brits off probably isn’t at the top of their to do list – in short the US would have to be in a very very tight spot to abuse UK trust to that expent…
OK that is longer than I figured, hope it helps.
Cheers CR
Didnāt I read somewhere. British Bās would fly from US ships?
Hope our two carriers do end up with full air groups ,just have to wait and see š
24 each would be very nice with another 24 in reserve or maintenance.
Highly unlikely. A full conventional air group also means Merlins, which are critically low in numbers.
Since 2010 the plan has been 1 carrier operational, 1 reserve and in use for other tasks.
In need the reserve carrier could be used of course and the air group split between the 2 vessels.
One hope regards both would be if Vixen UAV is a success and augments the F35s, which still leaves the Merlin shortage.
The RN has just two front line Merlin squadrons, 814 and 820. One of those provides small ships flights for the tailed T23s, the other for the in use carrier.
Until a few years ago there were 4 Merlin squadrons, 814, 819, 820, and 829 NAS.
Indeed it is a pity the 12 merlins we have in storage havenāt been brought up to HM2 standard and put back into service , seems a total waste.
The utter lunacy of the situation whereby in 2009 the RN operated 194 helicopters compared to the 83 of today makes me believe this reduction in mass is deliberately being carried out to reduce our ability to go solo in expeditionary warfare.
or am I looking at this wrong and itās because drones are seen as the future ? I dunno but either way itās not a good situation when every man and his dog outwith the west are expanding their military capabilityā¦ā¦
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I’ve had the same thoughts mate.
That is the conspiracy side of me.
There aren’t 12 in storage. It was at 1 point 8 airframes at Shawbury.
Some have gone to museums already (East Fortune and Denmark).
I see , wasnāt aware of that, we had 42 HM1 didnāt realise they had disposed of some of them. I presume we still have some ? They never gave them all away to museums surely š
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Not all given away, suspect a few are on the list for the FAA museum etc.
It’s also fair to say that they were near fully stripped down. Re-building them to HM.2 standard would have cost not far from building new.
According to the National Audit Office there are 30 HM2 in total of which only 20 are in service plus 25 Mk3/3a/4/4a/iMk3V with 12 in service.
Anyone know what the storage ones are potentially available for.
Such a small number of airframes available. They are being worked so hard.
I’m more practical and don’t think there is that type of conspiracy in this case. The answer is simple – money.
Storing aircraft in the damp UK requires air conditioned storage and is expensive, hence send the airframes to museums.
It is madness to be sure but there are moves with small drones to develop ASW capabilities and there is a quad drone already being developed capable of carrying a light weight torpedo. It is small enough for an OPV to carrier more than one, so the possibility of a couple of drones with sono buoys or even a dipping sonar and another to deliver the weapons is definately being looked at, I believe. It is a too logical step not to be, even if it is private venture.
Such a capability would take the pressure of the Merlins and I can see Merlins operating as command and control units in a wide area networked ASW flight, they are going to be around until 2040 after all!
UAV’s are changing the way the RN is thinking and I think they are keeping their ambition quietly low key – they have some catching up to do after all.
Money is the issue…
Cheers CR
How many Merlins were built ? And is there any Extra airframes what could be brought back for service ? But even if so can’t see HMG doing something what makes sense.But thanks for your post mate.
They are still being built for the Norwegians so we could just order moreā¦ you could have another squadron for the price of an entirely pointless National Flagshipā¦.
If that’s the case would it not be wise to order more Marlins to make up numbers,plus this could also work for puma replacement ?
With the three engines there is a running cost difference plus thats probably redundancy you dont need for land based ops (I know RAF types always bemoan having the worlds best ASW chopper foisted on them). But it would make sense to fo a top up order as well as the Puma replacements. The same engine can be fitted in the Aw149 and Merlin so that would bring savings.
I thought the general consensus was that the Merlin is a bit too much in Size and Cost to be an obvious Puma replacement.
44.
Two were written off I believe leaving 42.
There were, the HM1 not upgraded to HM 2 standard, as the posts explain above not any more.
Pleasure!
USAF is is planning on retiring the f-22 in favor of the F-35, If that tells you anything.
Thatās not correct.
The under development Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) aircraft will eventually replace F-22, not F-35.
Thatās not true at all. The F-22 will be replaced with NGAD. No F-35s will replace the F-22. When the NGAD aircraft come online then the F-22s will start to retire.
NGAD will need a missile better than AIM-120. Ideally it will have a throttleable engine like Meteor, outrange any AAM Russia and China have, have an AESA radar and have IR guidance in addition to radar.
Meteor could also do with two of these upgrades (greater range and IR homing). It’ll be getting an AESA radar in collaboration with work with Japan.
And we have………21. Ā£2b in R&D upfront costs as a Tier 1 partner. More than 40 pilots patiently waiting their turn for some flight time. 2023 for the next squadron stand up?
Two F35’s on the PoW apparently qualifies having two carriers at sea projecting ‘Air power’. 10 British jets at sea spread over two carriers? And in the meantime when we have achieved so much with the Typhoon, Tranche 1 is binned 10 years early!! Barely used airframes perfectly able for the QRA role for which we assign no less than 5 squadrons. In the attack role we need a minimum 6 Typhoon GR4/F35 squadrons operating in tandem. HMG must replace the 24 binned planes like for like.
A fighter force of 9/10 squadrons was visible fleetingly. So near…..
Could the Tranche 1 Typhoons be converted into a dedicated EW variant?
I’d like us to buy Gripens to replace the Tranche 1 Typhoons and create a nationwide network of austere bases located next to roads where they can be refuelled and rearmed in 10 minutes by a minimal ground crew. Essential capability to have if airbases are taken out in a war. We could (and should imo) buy a few more new Gripens every year going forward and/or build our own aircraft with the same austere basing capability.
Right, here we go again. First of all, the U.K. has not and is not disputing the fact that the USA is larger because, guess what? Itās larger. It has a bigger population so the fact that they have more carriers than us doesnāt really speak to anything, and what you said about āciting the special relationshipā doesnāt really have a pertinent point; we do in fact have a very close relationship and it benefits both of us. Whoever says that itās one-sided isnāt correct, since no one ever said a military/political relationship has to be absolutely EQUALLY beneficial, just MUTUALLY beneficial. The USā position in the world would be worse if the U.K. did not exist, full stop. Same goes for us. Now on to the F-35s. It isnāt embarrassing to accept the Marinesā offer to deploy on QE since weāre ALLIES. This is the entire idea. Itās not just assisting in war; itās assisting in general. We sent Chinooks to help France. Is that embarrassing for France? No. We asked for naval patrol assistance from France before the P-8s arrived. Is that embarrassing? No. Allies are there to be just that: allies. Not just like China and Russia who claim to be allies and have common interests, but actually help tangibly. Being negative about the US being our ally is one of the most ridiculous things ever said.
Bravo. He knows nothing of UKUSA and the intricacies of that relationship alone, never mind the rest.
I would question one sentence of your post: “The US position in the world would be be worse if the UK did not exist”.
As everyone knows, in military terms, there is a vast difference in sizes between the US and UK. The US has everything it needs to become involved in any conflict, without asking for help from smaller countries – including the UK. I do accept however that, when the UN requested the US to action to expel Iraq from Kuwait, as a member of both the UN and NATO, we and other countries had to become involved. Nevertheless, I’m sure the US could have carried out the the task without our limited help.
How embarrassing for you to display such ignorance in public š¤·āāļø
Mike is a genuine troll with many previous avatars and IP address, he doesnāt contribute to any debate just makes sad comments mate.
I feel sorry for him, he must have a pretty sad and empty existence to get his kicks out of trolling. It suggests heās rather bitter towards everyone else who has a life.
Just one thing. With the RAF carrying missiles on the wing tips,doesn’t that throw some stealth out the window?
According to the RAF website it can fit 2 AMRAAM and 2 paveway IV in the internal bays, or just 4 AMRAAM. The pilons aren’t needed most of the time so it can retain its stealth.
Yes but the F-35 can only currently carry AIM-9X on its wingtips. The F-35 can’t carry a short-range AAM internally because it doesn’t have lateral bays like the F-22 has.
Stealth aircraft are ALREADY detectable by radar, they just get detected at shorter ranges than non-stealthy aircraft. AIUI S-400 can detect AND ENGAGE an F-35 at 30 odd km head on. From other angles this figure will be higher, but by how much I don’t know. F-35s can also be detected at greater ranges by IRST, weather permitting.
Without getting too Technical F35’s are fitted with something known as a Luneburg Lens/Reflector in Peacetime Operations , to give off a signal return to Radar, so any External Stores wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway.
Thanks for info Paul.
Troll Harold, Troll TH, troll PierreLM and troll John amongst others. Troll is sad, troll knows very little, troll needs to study.
Troll is reverting back to form with more angry and more irrelevant posts, troll isnāt happy he has been clocked as being previous troll Harold and TH amongst others. Oh dear!
If a carrier group is staying out of the range of DF-26 or Kinzhal then F-35Bs and F-35Cs don’t have the range to reach China or Russia. (Same goes for ship-launched TLAMs, although the RN doesn’t have any).
The MQ-25 refuelling drone can only carry enough fuel to fully refuel one F-35 and that still wouldn’t give an F-35B or F-35C sufficient range.
Looks like Canada is going with 88 F-35s.