An F-35B test aircraft has completed its first flight carrying four SPEAR 3 missiles, as part of ongoing trials to integrate the UK’s next-generation precision strike weapon onto the fifth-generation fighter, according to the F-35 Joint Program Office.
The flight was conducted at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Maryland by the F-35 Integrated Test Force, with Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander Nick Baker of the Air and Space Warfare Centre at the controls. The inert missiles were carried as environmental data recording assets, with the team now preparing for the next critical milestones of mission systems integration and jettison trials.
RAF Corporal Daniel Housden, who has been closely involved in the test programme, said the milestone had been a team effort. “As a team, we have been working hard toward this key milestone, and I’m proud to say SPEAR 3 has now flown on F-35B. I look forward to continuing with testing at the F-35 ITF and starting preparations for the first ejections.”
Dan Shelton, F-35 JPO UK and Italy weapons integration programme manager, said the result reflected exceptional collaboration across the team. “Much of this effort is owed to the outstanding work of the combined UK government and industry weapons team, US government and industry partners. The team’s exceptional collaboration was essential in navigating the complexities of this programme, allowing us to work through every challenge and deliver results.”
SPEAR 3 is a miniature turbojet-powered cruise missile developed by MBDA, designed to be carried internally within the F-35B’s weapons bays to preserve its stealth characteristics. With a range of over 100 kilometres, it uses inertial navigation, GPS, and a datalink to engage targets in all weather conditions, including moving and manoeuvring targets. Once fully integrated, the F-35B will be able to carry up to eight missiles internally.
The first flight milestone comes against a backdrop of programme delays. SPEAR 3 was originally planned to enter service in 2025, but the timeline has slipped repeatedly. The programme is currently undergoing re-baselining, and the MoD has confirmed that the estimated in-service date has moved to the early 2030s. A long-delayed review note setting out the formal new timeline has been reported as close to submission for ministerial approval, with Aviation Week reporting in early May 2026 that the MoD now expects to field the weapon from financial year 2028-29.
Interesting article out today on just how bad the TR3 program has been. Apparently all TR3 delivered jets world wide can only be used for training. This includes 12 for the UK.
This appears to be why SPEAR 3 and meteor integration are so badly late. Apparently the entire data fusion system in the aircraft is limited and the electronic warfare suite is limited to threat detection only.
Damn.
And there was you extolling the virtues of this wunderweapon and It’s vast superiority over legacy aircraft such as F18, Typhoon and F15 adding that one F35 was more deadly than a squadron of either.
It’s amazing what you learn reading “Articles out today”.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.
Morning Jim, time to put them Budgie smugglers on and get out In the Sun mate.
The TR2 version is performing very well. It’s TR3 having the issues.
Lockheed is just full of s**t, overly ambitious in what it can do. It’s the software that’s the constant problem, aerospace companies are just not cut out to code.
Oh….
I remember that the TR6 was way better than the TR7.
Must be an evolution thing I guess.
Remind me which aircraft got shot down by 30 year old Iranian sam systems?
It wasn’t shot down 🙂
Dunno, 757 maybe ?
It’s worth noting that F35 first flew in 2006, Twenty years ago now.
This is encouraging news. F-35B with Spear 3 and escorts with Stratus-lo will combine to make a much more credible UK carrier strike group.
Did anyone understand why Aviation Weekly is talking about 28/29 if the MOD are talking about the early 2030s?
Could just be different milestones. Obviously the important one being fully operational in front line squadrons.
Is there a peace time and a war time integration accelerator pedal on these system. 5 years seems to be snail pace norm, but as with Hydra rockers on Typhoon it can be done quickly. Storm shadow, PW4, Hammer, Alarm etc have all been fused with old Russian aircraft .
Once they know it fits and can talk to the aircraft could they get them into service in an emergency? say a Russian strike on British forces Or is the F35 such a complex flying computer with sewn up Coding it’s Lockheed speed or nothing?
Hi David,
You ask a very interesting and telling question. Certainly Lochheed have not covered themselves in glory with the software even the ALIS support software is running late and that software does more than order spares. It gathers operational data and feeds back operational effectiveness information to the operational planning of future missions, particularly around how to get the best out of the aircraft stealth characteristics, which evolve with time and maintenance cycles.
So I suspect that getting new capabilities onboard isn’t just about the TR3 tech and Block 4 software but possibly also about data sharing with the ALIS system as well, none of which work properly yet.
As for integrating stuff onto the aircraft in a hurry, I am sure things could be done quicker. Firstly, by switching more effort into the process but that would imply something else getting delayed or chopped.
However, I think the biggest driver for speeding up the process would be down to operational pressures focusing minds on what is needed rather than what would impress your allies in the mess. As you point out some very sophisticated western weapons systems have been integrated into old Soviet era aircraft in Ukrainian service in remarkably short timeframes. Watson-Watt (team leader of the Chain Home Radars) put it something like this, ‘give them third best as second best is always late and best never arrives’. F35 is trying to be the best, war will see folk with nothing willing to take something that works well enough and have it arrive in time and they will put it to very good use, as shown by Ukraine. And boy will we need stuff to arrive quickly given the long list of capability gaps we have.
So yeh, I think things will speed up if the poop hits the fan and we should remember that we have visibility of the source code, at least I think we still do?
Cheers CR
What do the Israelis field on their F35s?
Have they been hampered by Industry?