The Earl of Minto confirmed that 809 Naval Air Squadron is projected to grow in strength and capability, with an increase in pilots expected to enable the squadron’s first operational deployment in 2025.
In December 2023, 809 Naval Air Squadron joined the RAF’s 617 ‘Dambusters’ as the second, front-line stealth fighter formation, operating the F-35B Lightning.
The information comes from a letter from the Earl of Minto to Lord Lee of Trafford regarding the number of pilots on the F-35 Lightning Force, as raised during an oral question on 809 Naval Air Squadron.
“During the debate on 809 Naval Air Squadron on 11 March 2024, you asked a question about the number of pilots currently manning the F-35 Lightning Force. I am sure you will understand that Lightning Force is a relatively small cadre of personnel with an important frontline role.
With such a small force, we have to carefully balance placing information in Parliament which would enable our adversaries to derive our full military capabilities. Consequently, I cannot provide the number of qualified F-35 Lightning pilots as it would prejudice the capability of the Armed Forces.
However, I can reassure you that the numbers of pilots on the Force are more than sufficient to continue to equip the existing frontline squadron and provide the training requirements for Force growth to reach Full Operating Capability of two frontline squadrons in 2025.
617 Squadron is at its normal operating strength of pilots, and as I gave in the primary answer in the debate, 809 Naval Air Squadron’s force growth, strength and capabilities will continue to increase throughout this and next year as further pilots graduate, as scheduled, from the Operational Conversion Unit. This will enable the first operational deployment of the squadron in 2025.
I hope this explains the position. I am placing a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.”
The Royal Navys aid previously that of the more than 100 historic Fleet Air Arm units whose numbers are currently dormant, 809 was selected more than a decade ago as a F-35 Lightning formation, largely due to its illustrious history as a strike and attack squadron having received battle honours from operations in the Arctic, Mediterranean, Burma, Suez and South Atlantic over a 41-year period.
The recommissioning sees the number of UK squadrons operating the Lightning expand to four, two front-line, plus 207 Sqn (Operational Conversion Unit) and 17 Test and Evaluation Sqn.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🥳 Sorry can’t resist that, 4 Squadrons, wow that sounds impressive. Till you realise 17 Test and evaluation Squadron has just 3/4 completely non operational Aircraft and is permanently US based.
Anyone want to ask the obvious next question, how many F35B are there in a full operational Squadron ? Any takers on 8, 10 or 12 ?
USMC settled on 10 !
I want to be a member of the House of Lords, my title would be Lord XXX of Mints, and I could sit right next to Lord Minstrel and the Earl of Minto(os).
I think the answer is eight but I would like to see us follow the USMC and go with ten. Forty seven due by 2025? That should allow a third frontline squadron. Then at last we’ll be getting a real capability which we can do something with.
On current planning. frontline F35B sqns will be equipped with 15 ac each plus a larger OCU. And the 3 or 4 aircraft on the OEU.
Hi Robert. From my air force days, 15/16 was the standard number . Generally 12 on the flight line, 3 or 4 in for maintenance.That was about a million years ago, so unsure what that looks like nowadays.
Hi ABC. From my air force days, 15/16 was the standard number. Generally 12 on the flight line, 3 or 4 in for maintenance.
On those numbers I read 75 – 80% availability on aircraft flying between 5 to 10 hours a week. Compare this to British Airways whose aircraft fly > 40 hours/week and are showing > 95% availability. It doesn’t feel like the tax payers are getting best value for money.
Hi Scott, it’s difficult for me to offer constructive analysis on serviceability numbers. Back in my day (the 80’s) there was no such thing as networked connectivity etc. I imagine all this tech means more stuff to go wrong.
I am liking your commentary re Taxpayer value – have we ever had any?😉
I take on board the concept of more complex, more to go wrong. In all other industries over the last 40 years, automotive, rail, communications, broadcast and film the technological advance has brought massive gains in capability (120 hp out of a 2litre engine vs 250 hp in 2024) with much reduced operational and technical costs. With greater integration the component count is reduced and the end product is way more reliable.
Good insights Scott- totally agree with you. Maintaining 75-80% operational for a jet sqn is a good standard. Although there is some smoke and mirrors. For e,g if an aircraft went into deep maintenance (D check), it was normally replaced by a pooled reserve aircraft .
I believe that is the model today – the unserviceable aircraft are in a centralised maintenance pool?
Whilst this appears to be good news, which I welcome, the refusal to give the number of pilots seems to fit with with the increasingly secretive approach that the MOD is taking regarding the capability of our armed services. Does anyone know if the number of pilots for any particular force has ever been withheld before? If not, or if this is a relatively new phenomena, then it seems to me the the Government is increasingly hiding behind the Official Secrets Act to avoid difficult political questions at a time of increasing international risks and threats. Anything to avoid being… Read more »
Embarrassed by the small number of pilots that have been trained actually will be more likely. When the Carriers were starting to stand up the RN had more than enough current fast jet pilots to man the F35B force but the light blue jobs failed to take that on. Squadron allocated pilots are 1.5 per airframe allocated which is the norm. The F35B (and why have they not been given a UK designation yet????) units should run the same. We waste our trained and expensive pilots by not keeping them flying even when away from front line or even once… Read more »
Just to point out the “lightning II” was the British nomination to name the JSF and the US agreed as it fits with their historic names too. So the designation is Lightning II Theoretically.
Nothing theoretical about it, it is Lightning II.
I know but how often do you see it used, it’s very much F35B………Lightning II
Once world class? Like back when we had all that 2nd rate equipment.
No I think he means when we dominated the whole fuckin world 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
What!! As opposed to “having enough fast jet pilots to man the F35B force” the RN couldn’t even man two Harrier squadrons, hence the disappearance of 801 NAS and the formation of the Naval Strike Wing consisting of 2 Flight sized units. The RAF disbanded one of their 3 front line Harrier squadrons to reform as a Typhoon squadron. As to no UK designation, that MIGHT perhaps be to lack of Boscombe Down clearance but more probably down to a disorganised and misfunctioning MoD with no consistency as the C-17, AH-64E and F-35B have no designation, yet the Posiedon, Wedgetail,… Read more »
…and the RAF prefer to use the weird computer-generated name ‘Rivet Joint’ rather than the UK-name AirSeeker for the RC-135.
I would agree we live in a democracy where the electorate vote on the performance of the government in delivering. If they refuse to give any indication of benchmarks then how can democracy function.
I have never seen published figures for pilot numbers of any force made public. Never seen how many Typhoon pilots we have. I couldn’t tell you how many pilots we had on Joint Force Harrier.
I wouldn’t say readily published but you could hunt it down and I have seen it answered in defence select committee meetings before on TV.
Whilst the Official Secrets Act is cited as an enormous fig leaf to cover all manner of information and communication. At some stage if government agencies are performing that badly or delivering such poor service or value for money, surely the public interest is more important. When it comes to cover ups and lies, the Post Office won’t have a monopoly, the corrupt processes are deeply embedded in permanent government departments, politicians and contractors. To lift the lid on any short coming wouldn’t just expose a single aspect, but the whole chain of the process. Surely the best way to… Read more »
Yup.
The balance between secrecy and accountability is completely wrong and our democracy is all the poorer for it.
Cheers CR
I’d agree with that, unfortunately, the Defence Chiefs in Defence Select Cmtte are also using what borders on sophistry to avoid answering difficult questions – why were all the SSNs tied up last October? “We weren’t tasked by government to anything.”
Avoided manning, maintenance and availability in one fell swoop. Despicable.
I hadn’t seen that one – talk about passing the buck. Although to be honest I think the politicians have probably gagged the defence chiefs. Tow the line or go… Politicians do not like being held to account. I think our parliamentary system needs an overall; The House of Lords need to become an elected upper house with fixed term elections; The power of party whips need some serious attention, our PM’s serve their constituents not the party big wigs; The election system for the House of Lords should be a proper proportional system, retaining the direct, first past the… Read more »
We had this on another thread, as well.
House of Lords needs reform, filling the Lords should not be in the gift of someone who served 49 days nor soneone with a criminal conviction.
I think election to the Lords should contain a quota of judges/military/people of faith but also business people, community activists etc, but, elected.
For re-election, their attendance and expenses claims should be available to boot.
Officials misleading Parliament should be sacked – and that includes officers of the Armed Forces who would be Courts Martialled.
If we are looking for 24 UK F-35s on the CSG 25 deployment, this doesn’t sound like a great lead up, with a first deployment for half of them in that same year. Or am I misreading it?
I know we were promised 24 UK jets, but I’d rather we sent 18 well prepared than 24 badly prepared.
It could well be 24 jets on board…..with 24 pilots so only 18 get used?
Would be spectacular to see a high sortie rate generated with jets serially taking off…..too expensive or some such nonsense!
Yes! And I really want to see an exercise with 36 F-35s maxing out the sortie rate for a week or two! Not yet though. Not yet.
I would love to see 36 onboard for a week or two but I don’t want the carrier leaving the North Atlantic with many more than a dozen or so.
Possibly an exercise against an aggressor force on Ascension would be a good premise.
Limited training value in long deployments with any more than 12 and we have too many problems in Europe to be sending a couple dozen stealth fighters to the other side of the world.
What class of ships do you want to cancel to pay for that exercise!
Yes I really think the RN needs to actually practice a max deployment of 36 jets with very high tempo …otherwise the first time they will get the opportunity is when it’s done in anger…so both RN squadrons and an USMC squadrons even if it’s just for a short time.
Dy mean the deployment should be for a short time ‘or we should only need to use USMC for a short time whilst we buy the planes we need to do it for ourselves?
only need the deployment for short while just to exercise the crew and run the deck with 36 jets on board, so they can write the book around a full deployment.
they Really so need a max deployment to do this, but for the foreseeable a RAF/FAA max deployment would need to include the operational conversion squadron as well and so impact on training pilots…where as the USMC is just an opportunity for joint working without any of the down sides.
I presume that 36 is on on one carrier. Will we ever get a full complement on both carriers.
No.
Hi Daniele, good to see another f35 sqn standing up, happy days! I seem to recall the plan was to have one carrier air wing deployed on a carrier, The second carries could be utilised in a quasi- commando carrier role (similar to HMS Hermes in the Falklands). Could be wrong though, things seem to change rapidly!
Correct mate. Going back to 2010 one was carrier was to be in reserve which was reversed in 2015 I think. This 2 airwings fantasy that keeps cropping up is just that. It’s available for other assets as needed.
Thanks DM -that makes goods sense .
Since when did anyone ever say we would have two full air wings…that would require 6 squadrons of F35 B and that was never the plan…the likelihood of both carriers ever being operational at the same time will be remote in the future…we have two carriers so we can reliably generate one..not generate two. personally I think we need 4 front line squadrons, but that is so we can generate one full airwing as well as have a squadron for land based deployment…or if we were ever so luckily as to have an enemy kicking off when we had 2… Read more »
When deployed. They always take more pilots than aircraft. That has been the case for decades.
Sure IRL.
I was tongue in cheek making the point that there will be 24 UK jets on deck even if they are craned onto the deck!
Joking apart – it will be great for the sprit of the F35B group to be working together on a long high intensity deployment. A lot will be learned that even USMC haven’t found out by operating that many BRAVO frames at intensity on one ship.
sure was in my day !
I think we all want to see a ripple launch of 24 but it’s hours and cycles on the airframes. If reports from the US are to be believed it’s £25k-£30k and hour. Oh I want to see it but I feel for the hanger deck crew.
Nothing is promised. If we can put 24 to sea, we will. If we can’t, then we will on the next deployment.
Or the one after that…
To be honest I think they need to do this…how can they write the book on high intensity operations if they have never practiced them. I think they need to invite the USMC to take part so they can fully fill the ship and operate at maximum sortie rate…even if that’s just for a few weeks of the deployment…..If something awful happened there is a very realistic likelihood the operational Elizabeth at the time would be loaded with both UK and USMC f35s and sent to whatever theatre operating a full air wing….it’s better to have written the book on… Read more »
To be honest, mate. The ships company, the aircraft handlers on deck, and the whole air department on the carrier’s is set up and trained to operate 40+ aircraft next Week if they had to. The working procedures are just the same. It’s just busier. On the Invincible class, we went from operating 8 Sea Harriers to operating 17 GR7s and FA2’s plus 3 MK9 Seakings and ASW Seakings. Then Chinooks and US Navy Seanights. We didn’t need to prove we could operate at that tempo. We just did it. Lessons are learnt from every deployment. And a lot was… Read more »
Carriers without planes, perfect excuse to sell /mothball one of them, we will see. Wait for the next defence review (cuts).
Do you see the picture at the top? It’s a carrier covered in f**king planes. Can you please advise what number of planes we need to buy until people stop banging on about carriers without planes because they read it in the Daily Mail once.
We have 74 on order is that enough? That’s more carrier capable planes than we have had since the 70’s.
If the goal wasn,t to leave the country unarmed a good solución would be to buy 80 B,s and 60 A,s , of course it never will happen.
What are you talking about, you do realise the defence of the UK is based around typhoon squadrons and the F35 are strike aircraft…designed for attacking other people where it hurts….the F35 squadrons will always end up deployed outside the UK in a war as we are not striking anyone from the UK….why do we need F35A…? An f35b on the deck of a carrier is both far safer from attack and has far greater range than an F35A shackled to 10,000 yards of concrete.
Sorry Jim but the planes are not all ours and we haven’t ordered 74. We have said we want them but it ‘s going to depend very much on the 2025 cuts, I mean defence review.😇
Latest response during parliamentary questions was that funding for an extra 27 on top of 48 (-1) initial order was in place and implied that MoD was progressing towards contract. But not there yet.
Contract is being negotiated ATM was what the resdout said.
Like I said. Not ordered. I hope they are.
The money for tranche 2 (27 aircraft) had been ring-fence by the treasury and the order will be placed before the end of the year. The decision for a T3 order for another 10 or 20 aircraft will be taken before 2030. Blk 4 abd TR3 upgrades arw also funded. 👍 blk4 will start being delivered from 2025.
‘Block 4 will start being delivered from 2025’…
I don’t think so. The US Government’s General Accounting Office has Block 4 scheduled to start idelibery n 2029. As they sign the cheques, that looks fairly conclusive!
What is supposed to start later this year or early next is tech refresh 3 (TRF3), which is a software upgrade plus new consoles, one of the preliminary steps paving the way for Block 4.
This F-35 programme is like watching grass grow.
Nope. Blk4 is scheduled to be completed by 2029. But by its very nature, its a spiral upgrade project, just like Typhoons Phased Enhancements. F35 will be in service until at least 2070. Blk4 is the enabler that will keep its capability ahead of anything our enemies can put in service. Including many 6th gen capabilities.
In service until at least 2070…is that based on facts or what your gut feel is…and does that include all variants.
That just seems an awfully long time.
And the rest..f16s have been in production since the mid 1970s and is still being produced now with no sign of stopping. It’s very possible the F16 will have a production run of 60 years and ..it’s unlikely the f16 will be going out of service before 2050 and may even hit 100 years of service in some airforces.
That’s is based on facts. Typhoon will be around until at least 2050
Ref the ongoing speculation and guesses about squadron numbers, it is a fairly safe bet that each of the 3 squadrons will have 12 – not 8 or 10 – frontline aircraft. The remaining 38 will be allocated: Wing Cdr: 2 Sqdn reserve: 9 War reserve: 9 Attrition reserve: 5 OEU: 3 OCU: 8 That leaves 2 aircraft spare. The MOD never orders anything spare, the only reason I can think of is that there is going to be a second Wing Cdr, either on board the carrier or i/c a FAA wing, meaning some eventual division of force betwe3n… Read more »
That is pure speculative fiction! Since when has an RN carrier group EVER had a designated Wing Cdr aircraft? Sqn reserve, war reserve and attrition reserve are all made up and do not exist in the MoD. The only official announcements that I have seen on numbers is that the front line squadrons will have 15 allocated, with 1 in reserve, and that the OCU will have more.
I don’t know if you are acquainted with the RAF’s squadron system? These aircraft are purchased from the RAF’s budget and will be organised on RAF lines, not Fleet Air Arm ones. The reasons I think my forecast is right ate that (a) the squadron organisation is pretty standard, albeit the MOD is always trying to cut down the numbers, and (b) the total adds up to 74, which is the tentative figure 1SL gave last year. If we look at it from your summation, your numbers don’t add up. You have 3 squadrons of 16 aircraft = 48 We… Read more »
The carrier in the picture is QE. 10 of those AC belong to the USMC.
Give all 74 F35Bs to the FAA and let the RAF order F35A’s. That’s enough for the RN to operate two air wings for its two carriers, and the RAF can concentrate on re-establishing an IDS role. Might be needed in the not-too-distant future.
Fantasy fleets, unless you’re planning for us all to work to the grave, magic up another ships company build a 3rd carrier for refit. Fund 50-70 A’s for the RAF and keep Tempest funded whilst also upgrading the Typhoon. If anything we should be putting in 75airframe tranche 4 typhoon order to keep it flying for a while with Tempest and F35.
The F35Bs have value compared to the F35A when not based on a carrier in that a potential enemy has to look much harder to find them as they can be hidden in many more places than just around existing airfields.
Theoretically the two frontline squadrons have 12 a/c each, but in practice the operational aircraft at Marham are pooled and the total number of UK combat-coded F-35B’s in the pool must still be well below 24. My guesstimate remains that POW will deploy next year on CSG25 with closer to 18 than 24 F-35B’s embarked.
A lot of dejavu again. 🙄🕳️
Good. Slow progress, but progress.
So reading the above is 74 the now accepted total we are now aspiring to -not even 100% sure we will get it?
I thought originally we were due to get 138..and my understanding was originally yes that number was intended to be the operational figure and not over the lifetime of the project.
I just want to clarify what was originally intended and what we are puportedly ending up with.
FAA more than 100 dormant Squadrons says it all really. Bring on the Sopwith Triplanes. A friend of mines father was in a Sopwith Dolphin Squadron. RFC of course, despite the nautical name.
Anyone know why the first Lightning II carrier squadron was RAF rather than FAA?
I wonder how many wing commanders the F35 force has got or will have?