The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the delivery of all 48 F-35 aircraft ordered under Tranche 1 is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Responding to a question from Gregory Campbell, Democratic Unionist Party MP for East Londonderry, regarding the timeline for the procurement, Maria Eagle, Minister of State for Defence, stated:
“The Prime Contractor of the F-35, Lockheed Martin, has confirmed its intention to deliver the 48 UK aircraft ordered so far (Tranche 1) by the end of 2025.”
The F-35 aircraft are a critical component of the UK’s future combat air capability, operated jointly by the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy. The fleet forms the backbone of the Carrier Strike Group, with the aircraft deployed aboard the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.
The delivery timeline reflects the Ministry of Defence’s broader investment in next-generation combat systems to enhance the UK’s operational capabilities in the years ahead.
By the end of 2024, the UK will have acquired 37 of the first 48 F-35B aircraft batch.
In a recent parliamentary exchange, Labour MP Luke Akehurst sought details on the progress of the UK’s F-35B procurement. His question to the Ministry of Defence, dated 12th September 2024, asked:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many F-35B aircraft he expects his Department to have taken delivery of by the end of 2024.”
Responding on 8th October 2024, Luke Pollard, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence, provided the following update:
“Against the current schedule, it is projected that by end of calendar year 2024, the UK will have taken ownership of 37 F-35B aircraft.”
We recently reported the arrival of more F-35B jets, which means the UK, as of today, has 34 stealth jets. With one aircraft lost in an accident and four test jets in the US, there are now 30 of the type in operational service in the UK.
There is an expectation that all of the 47 in the first batch will be delivered by the end of 2025. Note that it would have been 48 if one didn’t crash.
After that, the Ministry of Defence expressed the intention to purchase another tranche of jets. Funding has been delegated for an additional tranche of F-35B jets for Britain beyond the 48 already ordered.
Jeremy Quin, then Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, stated last year:
“Funding for a second tranche of F-35 Lightning has been delegated to Air Command as part of our recent annual budget cycle. Funding for Atlas A400M which not yet been delegated. A decision on future tranches of F-35B will be made in due course.”
For more on the planned additional A400M purchase see here, now, on to the F-35B.
“As you know, we are going to acquire 48. We have made it absolutely clear that we will be acquiring more. We have committed to have 48 in service by 2025, and we will be acquiring more. We have set that out in the IR. We will set out the exact numbers in 2025.
The 138 number is still there. That is a defined number and we are looking at keeping these aircraft carriers in operation for a very long period of time. I am not dismissing that number either. We know that we have 48 to which we are committed, and we know that we will buy more beyond that.”
How many are expected?
According to the Defence Command Paper titled ‘Defence in a Competitive Age’, the UK intends to increase the fleet size beyond the 48 F-35 aircraft it has already ordered.
“The Royal Air Force will continue to grow its Combat Air capacity over the next few years as we fully establish all seven operational Typhoon Squadrons and grow the Lightning II Force, increasing the fleet size beyond the 48 aircraft that we have already ordered. Together they will provide a formidable capability, which will be continually upgraded to meet the threat, exploit multi domain integration and expand utility.
The Royal Air Force will spiral develop Typhoon capability, integrate new weapons such as the UK developed ‘SPEAR Cap 3’ precision air launched weapon and invest in the Radar 2 programme to give it a powerful electronically scanned array radar. We will integrate more UK weapons onto Lightning II and invest to ensure that its software and capability are updated alongside the rest of the global F 35 fleet.”
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cant we move up production of the tempest program , after all we are in urgent need of fighter aircraft are not,
is their away to speed them up, just a thought.
No chance – modern Fighter Aircraft are very complex,the development times are very long for a reason,plus you need bucketloads of ££££££££££££££££££££.
I suspect Tempest will never enter operational service. In the interim it permits UK companies to develop technology that may permit those companies to play a leading role when this program is absorbed by a larger international, or American, program.
Tempest has already been absorbed by a larger multinational programme. Tempest was a whole different aircraft concept by BAE that then merged with the Italians and Japanese to be become GCAP, the original Tempest concept isn’t being pursued anymore.
I don’t think so. We have a concept and soon we will have a prototype. There are advantages to GCAP being British led. F35 was fine and I’m sure we will be buying more but we need to push forward with this programme.
It being multinational makes it entering service more likely. If we (or anybody else) pull out it would piss off the other partners and be a diplomatic nightmare. Short of Italy going to war with Japan or something that ridiculous there will almost certainly be a plane at the end of it, at some point.
Aha!
The US DO want to join Tempest!
Now, if you just pay us £2Bn to integrate SDB2 and JASSM, we might consider it…
Disrupt & delay is more likely – we would be foolish in the extreme to allow this
hoping tempest continues, may morph into another program but hopefully a Western allies alliance without the Americans muscling in.
10 years from drawing board to service is already quite ambitious. The Eurofighter Typhoon took over 20. As did Russia’s Su-57.
Largely due to peace breaking out in Europe and politicians not believing it was necessary any longer. Multiple political problems in Germany caused years of delays as did stretched and reduced numbers and funding
Let’s be really clear if anyone thinks we will have the first tempest front line squadron ready to be deployed before the mid 2040s they are being very very optimistic..let’s look at typhoon
1971 the first exploratory of the next generation fighter
1979 BAE proposed the collaboration around a Eurofighter
1983 Eurofighter project started
1986 the first technology demonstrator flew in 1986..
1994 the first prototype flew
1998 production contract signed
2002 test and evaluation squadron formed
2006 OCU formed
2007 first front line squadron stood up
2008 first front line squadron ready to deploy.
let’s just be clear a 4th generation fighter took 22 years between the first flight of its tech demonstrator to its first front squadron being ready to deploy.. tempest in front line squadrons by 2035 is fantasy..we may have the prototype flying by then..
I fear your imaginary schedule will be handsomely beaten. Neither Typhoon or F-35 are great examples of super project management. Quite the opposite.
The thing is I’m a manager of risk by trade ( as well as a disaster management expert) and I can tell you you never ever base management of risk on someone’s best possible outcome.. especially when every other fast jet programme on the planet has taken decades longer than this timescale.. I will also point out all they have said is they plan for a prototype to be handed over in 2035 as I pointed out the RAF got its hands on the first typhoon in 96…. It took them 12 years for it to become operational in a front line squadron.. there will not be a front line squadron until at least 2045 I will lay hard cash on it…
If you are a professional, you should be looking at a range of projects not just one (Typhoon).
well its typhoon or f35 airframes and as a further risk relates to the loss of a fast jet production line well before tempest starts production then from both a programme risk as well as a strategic risk on the the national risk register new typhoons would make a logical risk mitigation, second hand typhoons ( which I have also suggested at times) could mitigate the risks related to programme delay, but not the strategic risk around the sovereign capability and a new purchase of extra f35 would have the same risk mitigation against the programme but again not ameliorate the strategic risk to sovereign.
What would your suggests be around the programme risk of loss of airframe hours in the RAF fast jet fleet before tempest replaces it in front line squadrons and the strategic risk to sovereign capability if the typhoon production line shuts down before production starts on tempest ?
Your airframe hours risk is a figment of your imagination. There will be plenty of F-35 & Typhoon hours to last the UK until Tempest supplants Typhoon.
Your “strategic”risk is similarly pure imagination. The UK doesn’t have to manufacture every weapon in order to defend itself.
By the way, obscuring your answer by filling it with buzz words and phrases doesn’t do anything for its clarity or your credibility.
Ladies, ladies, put the handbags down. Let’s look at the history of British aviation. Some really good ideas put into production, quite a lot of really bad ideas put into production, an awful lot of excellent ideas cancelled, due to lack of funds. With Rachel Thieves as Chancer of the Exchequer, by 2040 we’ll be lucky if we have enough money left for some helium balloons with grenades attached to then and some long fishing line tied to the pins. Hang on a minute.🤔 Guys, I think I’ve just solved the gap in our air defense problem. 🎈 ✊️😉👍 🎇 🎆
Well I’m very pleased Thankyou for reassuring me, I assume you have access to the airframe hours of the typhoon fleet ? And you have the worst and best case usages of the typhoon fleet and have the worst case projection that show there will be spare hours into the 2050s to cover any delays in the deployment of the the 6th generation fighter..
If you do that’s fine, if not you’re talking hot air and actually being insulting. If you don’t wish to have a respectful discussion then don’t respond to my posts.
Hi Jonathan. I recall in the early 2000s that the Typhoon was touted as having a 40 year airframe life span -with a planned mid life upgrade in the mid 2020’s (i.e.-now). So much for that re T1!
The point is that this timeline supports your 2045 forecast for Tempest service entry. Think you are pretty much spot on here.
No more orders until they get meteor sorted out.
We need more F35s or our total UK combat air power really will suffer
Idiot HMG (incl.MoD) for:
Ordering sufficient F-35Bs for the carriers in overload (>36) capacity + attrition replacements.Putting the F-35s in RAF squadrons and ownership, limiting carrier operations.Having the P-8s under the RAF. No other force does that with maritime patrol aircraft.
Norwegian Air Force. Hold my P8 beer. Australia Air Force. Hold my P8 beer.
I should have elaborated:
“No other serious force that does maritime patrol… ”
RAAF and RNAF structures parallel those in the RAF, including their genesis from naval air forces and probably suffer the same afflictions in not wanting anyone else to have anything that flys …its a common light blue curse, which also infects politicians just as severe it seems (Psychologists could have a whole career there).
You forgot the RNZAF, which again proves my revised statement 🙃
…Serious could also be reflected in the numbers in service for various mission sets, and it would be hard to argue with the numbers in RAF service would not meet that threshold.
..I would argue if the RN was responsible for such assets, they would have more of them.
Absolutely, the UK would have more Naval F-35. Not only that, we’d have a drone program to assist them.
hhm – unsure of that, given they seem to be struggling to maintain credible frigate numbers. Was the P8 decision of 9 units MOD driven- not by the RAF?
I’d have thought the MOD sets out the requirement for a given platform ( P8 in this case) , the RAF negotiates the specific number needed with the MOD, who then go to the Treasury for the funding who then say you can only have 9.Obviously I might be wrong 🤔. .
thanks Paul, I’m unsure of the process -hence my question.
The whole lack of critical mass for the RN is political driven by cuts, especially those from the late 90s to 2000s which cut or delayed ships and submarines while reducing personnel so there was crew shortages even for those units remaining.
Not to say Army and RAF numbers were not also similarly reduced to below stupid levels, just indicative of governments and Joe Public not understanding at what cost ‘peace’ is achieved in reality.
I think they are all classed as serious Force’s mate. And key allies.
Unsure what you mean by “serious”- are you implying the RAF. RAAF, RNZAF are not serous in fulfilling this role? Can you demonstrate examples where the USN model is proven as a better structure ?
The whole MRA4 leading into the P8s I think is example enough for un-seriousness, though a big shout-out to BAE and some imbeciles with the last names of Brown and Cameron, in addition to the RAF, is also merited.
I am not necessarily happy with he US approach to the P-8 programme either; the only saving grace is the margin of P-8s to the P-3s was more narrow; while essentially those USN P-8s will be able to sanitise the GUIK Gap.
Given the Chinese threat though, if the Chinese acted up to the East, it is unlikely the USN has sufficient P-8s for a Pacific pivot currently, which then highlights the RAAF and RNZAF contribution, which in this context is minimal, especially if India sits on the fence.
Don’t forget Osborne in your hall of shame
What’s pate beer Robert?
Chocolate beer, I’ve heard of but pate is a new taste for me, I’ll give it a try mind 😉
I expect it could taste salty 🧂 😃
and the Kiwis-RNZAF!
The RAF like a fiefdom. Many other nations have support helicopters operated by their army and carrier-borne aircraft exclusively operated by their navy.
Agreed! It would be more efficient for the Army to operate it’s own CAS drones, for battlefield ops. Could the Army take on even more of the RAF’s role?
Does any other carrier navy have air force owned fast jets??
USAF fighting against Iranian drones and the issues with current airborne radars.
Of note Italians will put specific anti drone radars in their ships.
And yet they still all got shot down. They can’t easily avoid highly sophisticated radars and weapon systems.
The Type 45 destroyer knocked down a bunch so its radar wasn’t exactly “easily evaded”.
Ignoring this?:
“You’re talking about something that is on the very edge of a fighter aircraft’s ability to detect — what we call ‘find, fix, track, target and engage”
Unless you assume the pilot is saying crap what you make of it?
Since Israeli air def. systems – land and air -are also part of equation. So it might have occurred failures in this first layer that since the other layers worked are not accounted for.
Bollox
More so than detecting drones I’m concerned with how they are destroyed.
Using million £ missiles to destroy drones costing thousands is not sustainable. It is a very obvious tactic to completely deplete a forces missile stocks effectively achieving a mission kill.
The US deployed laser guided rockets in a ground attack role, possibly something like that may be an option, not dirt cheap but still vastly more sustainable.
We are a long way from laser weapons on fighter size aircraft at the moment. Something like dragon fire or a gun based platform only works on a ground or sea based platform.
Indeed. fighters need a short range cheap missile anti-drone so don’t need super performance and being small many can be put multi capacity pylons and gun pods 25-30mm.
Getting 10 airframes next year should really be a shot in the arm. We should then be able to stand up two full strength 12 aircraft operational squadrons and surge a Carrier up to 30 odd with reserves in wartime.
That’s pretty good….
That alone is a more capable force than many of the worlds air forces can muster!
When they have Meteor, Spear3 and Spear EW and the other tools in tbe box, there won’t be any front doors they can’t kick in on day one of a war.
Hopefully, the expected follow on order should allow three front line squadrons and finally reach the projected 36 aircraft ‘on board’, on a war footing.
You know well that the F-35b force will have 2 roles,
a) providing close air support for the land forces and b) providing an air group on the operational carrier.
The entire 36 front line stength will NOT all be embarking on the carrier. If the aircraft are needed on the NATO Europe front, there may be very few available for the carrier, if there is even a role for the carrier at that point.
This constant naval agitation with grabbing all the aircraft is becoming tedious. It ain’t going to happen, there are wider airpower tasks facing the RAF, the carrier is just one element – and not always the most important one – in the wider scheme of things.
Add into that a very poor serviceability rate of F35 across all variants. Less than 60 percent in the US. I suspect ours is worse given supply chain length.
You may suspect it but what is the actual UK availability?
Unlike the US we do not publish our serviceability rates. Many on here have said there would be security reasons. I don’t hold with that myself. It’s not a problem for the US so can’t see how it would be for us. Covering up bad news possibly.
At the end of the day, they will be deployed depending on the operational threat requirement. If the need is to project power from the carrier, then that’s what they will do. If the requirement is from a land base as part of a larger coalition. Then that is what they will do. And that’s the beauty of the F35B. Operational flexibility. It gives force commanders and politicians more options.
Indeed, and if typhoon is the better fit…it is after all a profoundly good multi role aircraft.
It sure is. Both types bring unique capabilities.
…. and the F-35 is profoundly superior to Typhoon
which is why a) the UK will be getting more F-35 not Typhoon and b) why Typhoon has lost out to F-35 in every international fighter competition.
And why does the U.S. navy and U.S. airforce still buy F18s and F15s as well as f35, why is Japan buying both F35 and F15, the German airforce and Italian airforce buying both F35 and typhoon because most large airforces want to keep capitalising their 4.5 generation fleets as well as develope their fifth generation fleets..infact the only airforces that have gone entirely fifth generation are the smaller airforces that can only afford to operate one type.
Just because we are capitalising our f35 fleet does not mean we should stop recapitalising our typhoon fleet. Sorry your so wrong on this.
How naive, such thinking that the RAF are to be trusted has proven wrong, time and time again.
Let’s be honest from the point of view of close air support the typhoon is the better platform..f35b is all about first day of the war..paveway IV is a great weapon but a 500lb guided bomb is not the close air support weapon you want a lot of, you want a typhoon loaded with brimstone and an if needed paveway or two for that.
The Typhoon’s first duty is air defence. We don’t have nearly enough of them for that job.
We don’t have 7 operational squadrons, as frequently claimed, we have 5. With 50% of the aircraft veing front line, that means about 54 aircraft. Subtract 4 in the Falklands and that”s 50. That gives us 5 operational sqns of 10 aircraft each, down from the standard 12.
These 5 small squadrons have to defend a lot of space, in the North, covering the north-east Atlantic and support to Norway and the Scandinavian countries, in the South, beefing up allied air defence over the North German Plain.
That’s before we detach flights for Eatonia, Cyprus or wherever.
All this to say, there is not a pool of spare Typhoons sitting around waiting to do tac air, aka close air support of the ground forces.
By failing to replace the Tornados in the interdiction role, we are well short of the aircraft numbers we need. Ah say the Treasury and HMG, we could task the Typhoon to do both jobs, of course without increasing the number of aircraft.
That pretence of air power will come back to bite us severely if push ever comes to shove. In the meantime, pretending that our very small Typhoon force can do air defence AND tac air is just pie in the sky.
And that is fundamentally why we need a big recapitalisation of the typhoon fleet.. at present the RAF is heading for a massive hole as it’s going to run out of fast jet airframe hours well before the 6th generation offer is ready to replace all the typhoon squadrons in the 2050s. Simply put the UK needs to double down on its typhoon fleet as well as developing its F35 squadron.. in reality the RAF should have 8 front line typhoon squadrons and 4 front line F35 squadrons.. with another new 40 typhoons so into the 2040s there will be 80 tranche 3-5 jets with plenty of aiframe hours… this would allow a risk free transfer to the 6th generation jet… the way it’s going the tranche 2 jets will be out of hours by the late 2030s leaving 40 tranche 3 jets… with the 6gen jet not even in production and a decade before it gets to a front line squadron.. its heading for a shite feast.
We will have to see what SDSR25 brings.
Tempest is at least 11/12 years away from OTU status, at least another few years from operational service from that.
Certainly it would be prudent to buy a batch of 30 Tranche 4 machines and bring all the tranche 2 and 3 up to the same standard, along with an airframe life extension package as required.
I suspect we ‘might’ actually get the current tranche 2 and 3 upgraded to the nominal block 4 standard, but no additional orders.
A lot of effort put into procuring a loyal wingman over the next few years too.
I’m sure the Anglo German effort will end up in tears, a lot of money wasted and nothing to show for it, as the French will put a spanner in the works…
My preference would be not to reinvent the wheel and simply order the eventual production version of Ghostbat, as part of AUKUS tear 2, via a UK assembly deal.
I would personally look at a dual role carrier capable Ghost Bat, a shared RAF/RN fleet.
Agreed on a tranche 4 commitment to replace the retired T1.
8xTyphoon and 4x F35 sqns would be an excellent balance (IMO).
I am surprised that the Army has not demanded procurement of CAS drones for battlefield ops? With the ability to use Brimstone, and SDB.
Utter cobblers.
It defies logic for the UK to pour defence money into a nearly obsolete Typhoon platform when a later (newer) generation of F-35, is available to buy
What on earth are you on about man, you have just made yourself look ridiculous, the typhoon is not a nearly obsolete platform it’s a mature platform hitting its peak, that has a full set of weapons intergration. Infact the last RAF typhoon squadron only stood up in 2019 ffs.
The U.S. navy are still taking delivery of new F18s and the U.S. airforce are still taking delivery of F15s which are decades older than typhoon.
simply put the F35 is a very good aircraft but typhoon does some things better and is more efficient. That is why those airforces that can afford it are still purchasing mixed fleets of 4.5generation and 5th generation aircraft. Because the 5th generation aircraft although a profound game changer are not yet fully mature and are more complex to operate and suck more resource…so the best airforce is a mixed 4.5 and 5 generation airforce…ask the USAF, the USN, RAF, German airforce…
calling the typhoon obsolete is utterly ridiculous.
Rather ignoring the fact that the F-35 with Meteor will do a better job of air defence than the Typhoon.
F-35 doesn’t have Meteor and we don’t have a confirmed date when it will. It’s a real risk to buy F-35s in the expectation of Meteor. We would be required to buy more AMRAAMs instead.
Integration of Meteor is guaranteed.
A pretty clear assessment Cripes. The RAF does not have the numbers to maintain 7 “proper “operational Typhoon sqns. In real terms- 5 appears to be the number (12 per sqn+ reserve+ OCU).
As you correctly pointed out- interdiction is all but gone. I suppose this may now be the realm of longer rage missiles.
Close air support is going the way of the dinosaurs. Maybe “has gone”.
By the way, “first day of war” is old nonsense. Today, every day is “first day” in terms of survability over the battlefield.
I don’t think anyone in the army would like to hear that CAS has gone. Why do you think it has? Our small field army would absolutely need CAS.
The army’s buying drones and long range artillery for that task. Over the battlefield is too dangerous for manned jets.
Typhoons dropped far more PWIVs than fired Brimstones over Iraq/Syria. Paveway 4 is the most heavily used weapon by far since its introduction to service in 2007.
“This constant naval agitation with grabbing all the aircraft is becoming tedious”
Huh, it’s the RAF that insists on total fast jet ownership and have stolen the aircraft from the RN at least 3 times in history. All turning out to be calamitous decisions.
Thank god the RAF didn’t succeed in their goal before the Falklands otherwise they would be flying an Argentinian flag there right now.
The RAF don’t decide. The MOD decides.
Most amusing.
“This constant naval agitation with grabbing all the aircraft is becoming tedious…”
After all, the F-35B was originally procured to replace the Harriers. And FOAS was to replace the Tornados.
The F-35b was actually acquired to replace the joint AV-8B force.
The AV-8B had replaced the navy’s Sea Harrier and RAF’s Jaguar.years earlier.
FOAS was long dead in the water by that point.
Yay, way to go John. “Three squadrons and we won’t wait” !!
Absolutely, let’s hope the top up order survives SDSR25!
Money is limited , choices need to be made.
The UK needs more F-35B’s for its carriers , the question is how many.
There are solid reasons for not buying only F-35’s.
The plane , specially the B version has limitations that do not make it ideal for many missions . The Typhoon is the far better choice in some cases.
In the meanwhile the Typhoon assembly line in the UK is out of orders and you do not want this capability to atrophy.
So…there is a real need to also order Typhoons!
“The plane, specially the B version has limitations that do not make it ideal for many missions . The Typhoon is the far better choice in some cases”
What missions might they be?
What limitations are you talking about then?
I suspect he means it’s not made in Britain and therefore barred from the next Battle of Britain.
We can’t get the pilots so what’s the point of more aircraft? Same with teachers & NHS staff,
We can get the pilots. If the will and £ are there to recruit and train them…
It be cheaper in long run to procure Ghostbat drones for both the RN and RAF.
Our airforce in the 1980s was impressive, now look at it,we would be wiped out in hours.
We need more aircraft,and more subs,we are a sitting target, and it’s all the government’s fault.
How long in total will it have taken to deliver those 48? Anyone know? Will we order 24 in the second tranche? I heard variously 24 or 27 being bandied around.
Probably depends on next years SDR and the current negotiations with the US on price etc.
With a few more Tranche 3 Typhoons please. 72 F35s will make the numbers operationally and sustainable viable, 60 (which I think we will end up with) will make things very tight.
Only the 2nd batch of F35s is planned to be ordered. No more jets than that
That’s not exactly true.
No budget has been allocated past 2033.
There almost certainly will be more batches past then.
There’s no chance of any more than 27 before 2033 though.
I think they’ve moved the production model onto Tranche 4 now? I sure agree with you !
You are correct, my bad, how’s you mate?
All good with me thx Airborne. Hope you are well too!
Batch 2 of 27 aircraft will probably be announced and funded after the SDSR reports in April 2025. Expect more of the same…slow build and dithering over cost and specification.
The UK really needs a new batch of typhoons but it seems the RAF don’t want any more typhoons, they are sticking with further batches of F35s. There is hope…albeit small dose of hope that SDSR will herald greater F35 orders as an interim into Tempest. If the FAA and RAF can get an active fleet around 100+ F35s by 2028-2029 timeframe then that will allow the tranche 1 typhoons to be given over to Ukraine.
By 2028-29 there won’t be much left of any T1 Typhoons to give to anybody – they are being stripped for parts.
Unfortunately were so cheap that we wont get the full 27 batch 2 F35s till 2033, at least thats what plans state
Well now that the final delivery date is in sight, all we have to do is spend the following 10 years saving up for some fuel to put in them. 😂🤣😂🤣 🛫🕡🪂