The Ministry of Defence has said the UK’s F-35 fleet will remain in frontline service into the 2060s, while declining to specify when sixth-generation aircraft will begin replacing the Typhoon and F-35, according to a written parliamentary answer published on Monday.
The exchange followed a question from Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, who asked the Defence Secretary to clarify the replacement timeline set out in the Strategic Defence Review 2025. The SDR references the introduction of “sixth-generation combat air” but does not attach firm dates for when the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) aircraft will assume the roles currently filled by Typhoon and the Lightning Force.
Responding on behalf of the department, Minister of State Luke Pollard referred Obese-Jecty to a previous answer about Typhoon’s out-of-service dates and stressed the longevity of the UK’s F-35 fleet. Pollard wrote that “the F-35 aircraft will remain a cornerstone of our CA capabilities out to the 2060s.”
He added that the UK’s next-generation combat air capability “will be delivered by the Global Combat Aircraft, alongside uncrewed platforms and the current generation of aircraft.” The answer offered no direct timing for when GCAP aircraft will begin replacing legacy platforms, instead highlighting the intended mix of manned and unmanned systems.
The refusal to provide concrete dates mirrors the broader tone of the SDR, which emphasises capability pathways rather than fixed milestones. GCAP’s target of delivering a sixth-generation fighter by 2035 has been presented as an ambition rather than a guaranteed in-service date. Typhoon itself retains upgrade pathways that could keep it viable well into the 2040s, including radar, mission systems and electronic warfare enhancements.
By 2060, we will probably have 4 Typhoons and 20 F35’s left, the 4 Typhoons will be stuck at the former RAF Mount Pleasant after Ascention Island has been given away to Belize together with £35 Billion.
The 20 F35’s will be stuck on POW as the UK mainland will have been submerged due to rising Sea levels.
Well done, I like that it’s sarcastic, backed by real life likelihood. Promote yourself to “Full Wit”🤔
🤣
Cheers “Dave”.
I have decided to call the Regulars after “Only Fools” charactors, Your name procludes any other so “Dave” it is.
BTW, Why do they call you Dave ?
That will solve the small boats problem 😀
I just hope those lamp posts are above the water level so everyone can see those George crosses.
It looks like the small boats problem might be sorted by Shabana Mahmood. Irony of ironies – we might be saved by a female, labour Muslim prepared to tell the labour left where they get off 🙂 Great – tough lady. Shabana for PM? As regards St George, I would prefer that England had a patron saint of our own, rather than sharing him with Bulgaria, Serbia, Georgia, Portugal…and many others. St Alban has a better claim to be England’s saint.
Her plan is just the same as any MOD plan looks good on paper till it comes to getting it past the treasury or parliament!
You think she’s serious?!!
Every Home Sec talks tough then does zero, it’s all to try to counter Reform who WILL take action, and be backed by millions in doing so. Labour have no interest in dealing with this issue, considering they started it in 1997, as well as having no interest in defence beyond what jobs it creates. The left of their party will try to block any real proposals put through Parliament, just as they did when Reeves tried some sensible reductions in the welfare bill.
And she missed out plenty of juicy details, like just when will this be law and just how do you enforce removing someone when its decided they can now return to their country.
How do you know what country when they throw their papers away?
How can you return them if that country doesn’t agree?
How can you return them when deportation flights are regularly challenged and blocked from leaving.
And what if their nations are not given safe status?
Details…..she’s as bad as the Sec of State for Defence, any REAL cross examination of plans would fall like a house of cards if allowed to challenge wity the right questions and knowledge.
It’s pure window dressing to make headlines as they’re scared shitless of Reform.
They should be…..it is due the behaviour of the Conservatives and Labour since 1997 that Reform are doing ao well.
Reform are just the Conservatives Party 2.0.
Maybe. But the Conservatives are not Conservatives either, and not the Conservatves I voted for, or my mother voted for, or my grand parents voted for.
I can vote Reform, Green, Liberal Dem, or waste my vote by not voting.
Lib Dem and Green are out of the question. So that leaves me little else….
There are millions who will feel this way.
Courtesy of HMG.
Well to be fair Reform haven’t had a chance to govern at high government level yet so maybe I’m wrong and they’ll bring back a new golden era. But I highly doubt it. They dont seem to be doing too fantastic at council level.
Roll on 2029!
Yes. I’ve read the avalanche that they have no experience in government.
And what experience does the current Labour cabinet have? How many ministerial posts, real or shadow, did they have?
It works both ways, and here they are.
I’m often struck by history where tribes were meant ro be run by the wisest elders, or the strongest warriors. What do we have in politics today?
Wisest? Bravest? Best in the fields of Engineering, Academia, Science, Business, Economic matters, Life skills, military matters, international relations?
Where are they in this government, or the Tory ones for 14 years previously?
Plastic politicians at best, many Labour oned who at least have a legal background, conducting their ideologies and waging war on the opposite party with the aim of being elected next time, sweetened come election time by a whole raft of freebies and vows to get people to vote for them.
And all that is long term strategic planning in the national interest is it???
Pathetic…
At least China has a long term plan. Ours is managed decline at best and survival of Labour and the Conservatives.
No more….
Agreed, Labour and Tories have destroyed this country and I’m not a voter for either parties.
I genuinely cant think of a party who could fix this country. Well once I get my cyber security degree maybe I’ll leave! Though I do love Wales!
Brain drain….so sad, but you need to put your own life first before our nation.
Respect. Good luck to you!
Sorry to rant….some things I feel VERY strongly about.
Cut it short, yep, my wife and I remain to be convinced as well over some things, while others we 100% agree with, such as real action needed over migration.
Tired old snipes of “race” is boring old chestnuts that washes off like water, heard it all before, it’s not the case for most, who are cultural nationalists like we are, not die hard racist scum, and have no effect on what we believe or what we’ll be voting for.
Go and ask my good friend Erik Odek, a Kenyan, skin as black as the night, who actually agrees with us over these issues, whether we are racist.
No need to apolagise I enjoy these conversations. I was very very liberal when I was younger but as I’ve got older I have seen the other side of the arguement regards to immigration and other issues. To be honest I’m probably in the centre.
I dont have a problem with genuine refugees, got a Syrian family living across me from Aleppo and are a lovely family whose kids speak more Welsh than me!, but those coming over to sponge of the state can go. On the other hand, if someone has a skill we need and is willing to contribute to the nation, come on over.
Regards to the brain drain comment (I cant reply to it for some reason) I probably wont leave. Theres a huge shortage in IT in the UK so there’s plenty of work here.
A lot to unpack there Daniele, a lot of it very true. Do I think she is serious? Yes, I do. As a Muslim immigrant herself she has a personal interest and experience. She understands that if the level of illegal immigration is not reduced there will be social unrest. The irony is that many well motivated, genuine asylum seekers will pay the penalty for decades of free admission of immigrants who settled in communities which now form what Starmer referred to to as ‘islands of strangers’ – some might say ghettos whose loyalty is more to their brother Muslims across the world than to the UK.
I don’t think the left of her party will be able to thwart her plans. She will navigate her path so as to avoid a parliamentary confrontation and the Tories will support or abstain at key votes.
I agree about the practical challenges of returning immigrants; but they apply to whatever scheme you come up with. Is Reform influencing things? Absolutely, nothing works for MPs like the threat of losing you seat!
Good post. I remain sceptical, but take your points on Mamood and I’d support her if she’s genuine.
Funny that, I’ve mentioned exactly what you said there many times, communities within communities of people with no loyalty to the nation but to their own kind.
That’s not racism, it’s despair at seeing what has happened to your country and sadness at the lack of wider esteem for it.
THAT, is what will cause big problems in this country going forward, and it’s already far too late as so many are going over to Reform and ignoring whatever smear comes up next.
Labour are toast already but it’s rich they talk a good game already far, far too late while doing nothing.
A simple read of the BBC article online today at the rebellion growing within their party says it all.
The big problem is that Labour shouted down any previous plans to deal with the situation.
So they don’t have the best credibility.
I do wish her luck with her plan as a country we do need to do something genuinely tough to get this situation back under control and one single thing is not the answer. It needs to be a change to the whole fabric of the way things are done.
– restrict access to benefits
– restrict citizenship for dependants and family
– restrict access to social housing
– require ID cards
– crack down on illegal working
– crack down on the very obvious money laundering operations on every high street
the list could go on and on and most of them require zero new powers as they are already crimes.
The whole things is utterly linked and unless you push on all these buttons at the same it won’t move the dial.
It won’t. Labour will make noise but do nothing, just my prediction.
Nobody is prepared to have an honest conversation with the electorate and say we need to do X, Y & Z so elect me to do that.
They all hide behind ‘if we state a clear policy they will knick it’ and so evade stating anything.
At this point in time anyone who actually have a policy platform that made sense and vaguely added up would get elected by a landslide – particularly if they were not Labour! Who have been far worse that I could have believed.
Hi mate. I just don’t think Reform have the magic wand to bring the change. As with all political parties. What they say in opposition is very different to how much action they can/will do once in power. Everything is massively more difficult. And it’s a global problem. I don’t think Reform is the answer, just like Trump isn’t for the US. And that’s my worry. That Reform will copy Trump style rhetoric and BS and our political standards will nudge even lower.. I don’t know what the answer is. I’d like to see a return to politicians people could actually look up to, and believe they can deliver and just be honest and realistic with people. Any government is only as good as the economy they inherent. Nigel Farage certainly has some likeable qualities. But is he a Prime Minister. The jury’s out on that one. But if Labour don’t get a grip on this, the next election will be very hard work for them. I’d get Penny Mordaunt in charge of the Torys.
The Jury is indeed out.
Agree on Penny.
Hi SB Interesting list and I agree with every single one of them, however I do think we concentrate far too much effort on the Human pull factor as U.K is seen as a “Soft touch” with benefits etc and virtually non on the economic driving force of immigration.
Not one single person mentions the money or chases it up, in 2023 £9.3 Billion was remitted by non U.K citizens from the U.K. to their country of origin, it’s zero taxed and as we abolished currency controls in 1979 we have no way to control it. Why do people not realise that all those Money Transfer advert actually draining Billions out of our economy rather than circulating within it and raising the GDP.
Just think about how a person raises the money to get here, they have to borrow it, pay for their transit and then repay it ! They can either raise it from their family or they pay it to the traffickers by working for their uk businesses for x amount of time when they get here. Does anyone who uses a car wash think the bod doing it is earning National Minimum wage ?
Plus once they have done that they will want to send more money home to support their family or to help another come over.
So just cut the money pipeline and you destroy the economics of immigration, it’s a business just like any other and if there is no cash it collapses !
Totally agree with you about money going out of the country. There is a whole industry of milking benefits and getting social housing for ‘relatives’ and then going back to where the original ‘refugee’ was ‘under threat’.
I do think that returning to the county of ‘threat’ should be grounds to revoke as it is clear demonstration of lack of perceived threat!
It is a real issue with EU migrants as well. I employ plenty of Eastern Europeans and I know it used to be a massive thing. Less so now but it will still be going on.
Mahmood is having a stab at practical measures like you mention. But the issue is really lack of agreement about the definition of ‘the situation’. I think the real problem is the insularity and slow pace of integration of generations of past immigrants. Mahmood has spotted the danger to our social fabric of Reform’s policy of repatriating past generations of immigrants who are not UK citizens but have indefinite right to remain – she has called out Farage as a racist – and this is a racist policy. What we have failed to do is integrate past generations of immigration. Many retain their cultural allegiance to the place and faith of origin. They are sharia mini nations within the UK. Mahmood herself is an Oxford educated barrister. She sees the problem because she has been ‘processed’ by a quintessentially English educational establishment. Like Rishi Sunak she has been ‘reprogrammed’, while retaining her faith. But she is the exception. This is why there should have been English lessons for immigrants. Instead the NHS finds it needs to provides translation, perpetuating the problem. If I were to emigrate to France , I would expect to have master French to a level that would enable me to function in society. This is also one of the reasons why Phillipson is right to force through more national standardisation of the school curriculum. At least we can get the next generation speaking English.
Hi DM. From my limited understanding from BBC coverage, I suspect Labour have taken the mood of the room and they know this issue is a vote breaker. Hence them “doing something” about the problem. Still don’t understand why the authorities don’t confiscate the boats and arrest the operators in France.
Simply ship them off to somewhere they don’t want to be. Anywhere but the UK. Falklands, Pitcairn, Chagos Islands. Do a deal with Norway to ship them to Svalbard, etc. it will cost a little up front, but the boats will stop when they realise they can’t get what they want. They will be clamouring to leave. Nothing else short of Hitler’s solution will work.
HI DJ, I’m told the Shetlands are lovely this time of year. I.m sure there are plenty of ex army barracks that be can be re-purposed as detention centres , The Aussies have the right idea with the Christmas Island detention centre.
Controversial but I do find it funny the the quintessential English icon was actually from turkey and ended up a mercenary working for the Roman Empire.. sort of ironic really.
The crux of the issue is sense of identity. Consider the following 2 sentences. A) He is an Italian American B) This man is a British Muslim.
In the first sentence, Italian is the adjective and American is the noun. The American man considers himself to be an American citizen of Italian heritage. In the second sentence, British is the adjective and Muslim is the noun. It would be normal for the media to refer to a Pakistani or Bangladeshi man as a British Muslim.
Is this problem of perception ours or theirs?
The thing about St George is there is no evidence he even once visited the British isles or even Western Europe..he would not have known anything about Britain.. funny really.
The true patron saint of England is actually St Edmund. From the county of suffolk and town named ” Bury st Edmunds” also just happens to be my county.
Yeh, Edmund might just shade it. Lots of documented history.
We’ve had the Global Combat Ship and that has been a great success. Long may it continue with the Global Combat Aircraft.
Morning “Damian”, GCS has it’s origins from way back in 1998, nwearly 28 years ago, Steel was first cut 8 years ago and not one ship has been fully built yet.
Orders and adoption of the design are great but we have yet to see how successful they will be.
Delboy, Albert, Trigger, Rodney, Damian all sorted now ! 😁
If US pursues same policy re F-47 FMS as the F-22, virtually impossible to imagine GCAP/Tempest will not ultimately be an unqualified export success. Germany slated for decision re FCAS by end of CY. In the future, Luftwaffe coffers will be overflowing w/ Euros for investment in successful defence programmes. Saudis now round up to nearest $Tn when discussing foreign investment, and defence programmes/investments are always a priority. Norway has a multi $Tn Sovereign Wealth Fund available for investment. GCAP/Tempest success is as predictable as shooting fish in a barrel. No worries, mate.
Wonder then with all these 36 years to come if they’ll ever be a twin engined F35, even a F35B STOVL type? And will one or both of the QE carriers evolve with it?
No one’s made a twin engine Stovl for obvious reasons
There will not be a twin engined F-35 I can assure you, this was just another momentary fantasy thought plucked from the air inside his head from our glorious alien overlord when he had Lockheed bigwigs in the Oval Office to offer ‘support’ having just given the new US fighter project to a competitor, leaving them desperate for any new work on current platforms they can glean. They looked on and smiled not daring to contradict their bread giver but Lockheed has never seriously promoted the idea simply because it would effectively be a brand new aircraft without most of the benefits of a clean sheet design which they would much prefer to have created over persisting with reworking the F-35. Cost, design and timeline would simply never add up, offering probably the most expensive and pointless flying boondoggle of all time. What they have talked of is an up engined F-35 (which will happen) giving more performance, range and weapon load inside at most a moderately modified airframe and various other upgrades and modifications including a possible ‘two man’ version making the control of drones more easily, incorporating elements of their rejected 6th Gen proposal. Trump heard the number ‘two’ mentioned and went off on his fantasy trip where he thinks he is the preferred expert on all manner of things, just as he did when talking about injecting disinfectant into Covid victims in front of incredulous actual experts.
Basically there isn’t a funded plan so as to disguise that it is fudged and kept secret.
As most of us on here have controlled onto there is a bit of a problem with EoL Typhoon and GCAP with a very optimistic introduction window.
The only solution is more Typhoon, as they can carry weapons or F35 as they have sensors but can’t carry UK weapons. Which is unbelievable.
Meanwhile MOD use the fact that F35 can’t carry UK weapons as a reason for not buying them and that Typhoon does have F35 stealth or sensors for not buying those.
Clearly this is a policy developed by the Camerloon defence policy generator that gave us ‘can’t see a use for an aircraft carrier in the next ten years….oh, wait Libya….can we send a carrier?….no, we can’t’
Basically praying we don’t need to fight a war until some time in the far, far future….
If the government actually did buy some more Typhoon’s for the UK they might actually get respected and even thanked for it. It may not be ideal for those who love the F35s but pragmatic, realistic, timely, sensible, good for industry, employment, morale, even good for beefing up defences!
Ah but the RAF isn’t interested in Typhoon its last years Toy, it wants the F35A which is so nice and shiny so is doing absolutely everything it can to kill further F35B buys or more Typhoons. To make matters worse we have a new CDS with vastly reinforced powers, who’s never been a pilot, aircrew but is an engineer by trade (which makes a pleasant change and yes I’m biased).
Fact is that as it stands an F35A operating in an intense Central European war isn’t much use for anything be that offence or defence because we can’t integrate the bits it needs to make Bangs unless we buy US.
The other bit I just don’t get is who is doing analysis of the Air War in Ukraine and what are they finding out ? On the surface it seems that without HAS, using mainly old Ben 4 Soviet or NATO aircraft Ukraine is still fielding an airforce. Which considering it’s facing a vastly larger number of slightly younger 4/4.5 gen with 2 borders with SAM, Radars etc is somewhat of a miracle (maybe they didn’t get the memo re Stealth being vital in modern warfare).
As for the RAF fixation on the nice Shiny F35A toy, maybe they should ask their American playmates why they are apparently cutting their orders by half ?
Could it possibly be that with its never ending delays to software upgrades, ever increasing costs (both direct and indirect such as maintenance) the US has realised that the Shiny New Toy is to use a lovely old Derbyshire Expression a Lady best described as having a “Fur Coat and Dripping” as it looks nice but lives on a diet of dripping (the cruder version of that saying is “Fur Coat but no K******s”).
To me it’s simple don’t buy the F35A and make things even more complicated for the maintainers, buy sufficient F35B to equip the carriers (and US weapons if necessary) but meanwhile buy 48 new build Typhoons and upgrade the rest of them.
And as for the RAF wanting to get back into Nuclear strike just speak to the French about integrating ASMP-R onto Typhoons, at least that way some of them may get home alive.
Completely agree around everything you have said, but unfortunately the RAF brass are utterly and completely focused on getting F35 and specifically f35A.. they admitted as such in a letter not so long ago as part of an FOI. It was a very honest and entertaining letter that essentially amounted to a “ F%ck typhoon, F35 is the future of RAF air power” tirade from a senior serving RAF officer. Any money the government gives to the RAF for fast jets will be spent on F35 unless HMG overrules them.
Geez SB that is such a spot on take, you can just picture the Committees discussing these very matters and never coming to a decision to spend money on anything other than what they are going to have for lunch and the quality of the Port they can get away with and put off any further contemplation of the actual important matters at hand till the next meeting hoping fate will have decided for them by then. Rinse and repeat.
We will inevitably have yet another vital equipment gap of the very nature that everyone is complaining about today and no doubt buy some second hand Gripens from Ukraine to fill it till Tempest actually does come into service hopefully in the late thirties. Only the Japanese being onboard gives me any hope for that 2035 date but even if by a miracle it was the first Gen will be undoubtedly built for but presently without much if its potential capability I fear.
I think limiting GCAP funding is the only way Ms Reeves can produce a budget which balances without raising the headline rate of income tax. A combination of manifesto policies, commitments, left leaning MPs, circumstances and previous errors means that it is the only degree of freedom she feels she has left: trading off GCAP funding against new Typhoon orders generates jobs, growth and makes political and defence sense in the short to medium term. The promised extra defence spending has to come from somewhere.
Farcical is my fave word this week. By 2060 all the UK population will be speaking Mandarin and wearing Ho Chi Min sandals. Peoples Militia will all carry AK’s and execute dissenters from government protocols. Laugh? We are almost there.
Ha, you arn’t far off ! Most of our Yoofs seem to talk a foreign language already, In it Bro, like this is wat i is sayin my N(word). FFS. I blame Sky TV.
U iz rite 4once on dat innit. Adapt or our Assisted Death bill will encompass everybody over 40 wot dont adapt innit. Yoof power.
Don’t laugh it’s not a foreign language they are just starting to speak faster.. my eldest and her friends communicate by sending each other voice message recordings and they all listen to them sped up at x2 speed..when they sit and talk they speak so quickly all I hear is buzzing.
“Jonat” Jonathan ?
I’m transitioning to simply J or the letter formally known as Jonathan..
2060’s that’s like the Hawker Woodcock still in operational service in 1960’s!
How many times have I said this even if they get the first product model up for 2035 ( which in itself would be a miracle ) the first front line squadron would not be active until 2040 and you would only have about five front line squadrons for 2050 so typhoon will need to be flying into 2050.
Exactly, so predictable, yet as usual and despite the imminent warnings of serious conflict the Govt is burying its head in the sand (assuming it’s even ordered enough to do so). It’s the same old ‘let the next Govt solve it’ that has decimated us in so many ways and saved immediate cost at best to only to quadruple it later.
I regard the F-35 as a work in progress. Once it gets the upgraded engine, APG-85 radar, better cooling, new EO, & a wider range of weapons + drop tanks, it will finally come right.
The F-35 is slated to serve into the 2060’s? Which variant? The F-35B? Which looked like it was going to be rated as having a design life of 2,100 flight hours before they postponed the testing? Or the F-35A which appears to have a relatively standard initial design life of 8,000 hours? From what I have read there has not been a final test of the F-35B to see how long the current build is probably going to last but it is probably less than 8,000 hours.
How many flight hours per year will the B be flying in the projections made so far? I have not seen it published but it must be out there. The smaller fleet of F-35A’s will probably last longer than the B fleet.
I always figured that most nations would “top off” their F-35 buys in 15 to 20 years as the aircraft continues to evolve and improve, but has that been in the plans for the UK?
So to cut to the chase, the UK is not…
Increasing spending on defence.
Going to get anywhere near 3%.
Will never get to 5%.
Will not have a 6 gen aircraft.
The Gov ergo Labour Party…
Has no interest in the military.
See’s no need for more military kit.
I think your haiku needs work.
The most depressing read of the day, by a country mile (a little shorter than a nautical one), is this months Defence Analysis article on the F35.
Who’s great idea was that purchase?
The Artificial Intelligence piece was mildly entertaining, not sure it was supposed to be,
and do not ask what they said about lean or unmanned surface vessels.
2060s???? 2100 more likely with this shower in charge.
By 2060 maybe British F-35’s will have got Meteor’s, Spear 3, and maybe Spear 4. Even though the UK has handed over millions of £’s, the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed have repeatedly pushed Meteor intergration to the back of the queue. Now in service date is sometime in the 30’s.
When I see an RN carrier with a deck loaded with F-35’s, as with the PoW now off Naples, I can’t help thinking of the “Emperor’s No Clothes.” Maybe the F-35’s are not completely naked but are just wearing vest and underpants.