An F-35B has successfully conducted the first test flights carrying a Meteor air-to-air missile, marking a key milestone in the integration of UK weaponry onto the F-35 platform.

The test flights, conducted from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, involved an inert version of the missile, used to collect environmental data as part of the broader testing programme.

The achievement is the result of collaboration between the UK and US governments, as well as major defence organisations including the Ministry of Defence, Defence Equipment & Support, MBDA, and Lockheed Martin.

Meteor is the UK’s primary beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, already operational on the Eurofighter Typhoon. Its integration onto the F-35B Lightning II represents a major step towards enhancing the aircraft’s combat effectiveness.

Air Commodore Al Roberts, the RAF’s Head of Air-to-Air Missiles, highlighted the significance of the milestone:

“This milestone is a testament to the effective collaboration between the multinational governmental and industrial partnerships that we have in place. Inclusion of Meteor onto the Lightning II will bring this formidable air combat capability to the UK and to the burgeoning F-35 community, significantly enhancing security among allies.”

The Ministry of Defence has previously confirmed that both Meteor and the SPEAR 3 precision strike missile will be fully integrated onto UK F-35s by the end of the decade. This follows previous government statements that Meteor would be operational on UK F-35Bs by the middle of the decade, with a 2022 government report suggesting that 2027 was the earliest feasible date for full integration.

The integration of Meteor onto the F-35B will significantly improve the aircraft’s ability to engage airborne threats at extended ranges, reinforcing the UK’s role in NATO air defence and coalition operations, when it finally happens.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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83 COMMENTS

    • Very much so. An upgraded F22 might still have a slight advantage due to its superior high altitude supersonic performance. But F35B has a more capable radar/sensor fusion and situational awareness and the added advantage of a IRST Integrated as part of the airframe. Not an add on external pod.

      • I’m not even sure the F22 superior high altitude energy performance would outweigh the kinetic advantages meteor has over every other Air to Air missile available..it’s 3-6 times the energy advantage of other BVR missiles. Add that to the F35s better sensor fusion…there really is nothing that will come close until all the 6th generation offers drop.

      • Taking nothing at all away from the F-35, but everything I’m seeing about the F-22 IRST upgrade leads me to think that it’s integrated/embedded and not a pod. This is from the LM website:

        “The F-22 will soon feature a newly developed, distributed set of embedded TacIRST sensors developed by Lockheed Martin to enhance aircraft survivability and lethality, known as the Infrared Defensive System (IRDS).“

      • The AIM-260 JATM seems to be on the verge of entering service, obviously very little info on it but it’s likely at least on par with Meteor.
        I’d say it’s a toss-up between F-35 with Meteor and F-22 with JATM

    • Asraam, one of those seriously underrated advanced missiles the Uk had invested so much in..without doubt the best western within visual range missile available, but it’s also not acknowledged that its range is 50km making it into the the BVR range as well..

      AMRAAM -D a pretty effective BVR missile..range not acknowledged to be out to 160-180 Km

      Paveway IV the RAFs ordinance of choice even when it has the option for missiles it seems to generally drop a Paveway..range around 30Km.

      its not bad but meteor is a step change..it’s got about 3 times the no escape range of an AMRAAM and Spear 3 will be a step change as well, a 100km missile that’s clever self targeting on systems and potentially a networking swarm that one . And with externals an f35 could carry 16…the ability of a flight RAF to swamp and overwhelm any integrated air defence systems with be significant F35s

      • Tbaks for the detailed brake down, are we not thinking of integrating any heavy anti ship missiles? I believe spear 3 and paveway can be used for anti ship but it’s not ideal.

        • Yeah the SPEAR3 will be a great weapon for many purposes, but something with greater range and a bigger warhead would be more ideal for anti-shipping missions. The Kongsberg Joint Strike Missile is being integrated into the F-35A. the USAF, Japan, Norway and I think the Australians are already purchasing it. I don’t know if the JSM fits internally on the F-35B or not, but external carry would be fine given the greater stand-off the JSM has over SPEAR3. The LRASM is being integrated onto the F-35C and B for the USN/USMC. LRASM is external carry only I believe, but has even greater standoff range than the JSM, and a bigger warhead.

          • Spear 3 also has the benefit of being small, cheap and available in large numbers. If you engage a ship with a limited SAM magazine SPEAR 3 is a good way to munch up those interceptors.

          • Absolutely, I’m not trying to argue against SPEAR 3 at all, and it has many advantages. SPEAR 3 can do a little of everything, but after a point it’s horses for courses. I was replying more to NorthernAlly’s quote about anti-ship strike. In a high end, peer naval fight for example I think money is less of an issue. Against a ship, weapons like LRASM are vastly more expensive, and have datalink “swarming” like SPEAR3, but also offer stealth, far longer range, and much larger warheads. SPEAR 3 would be a lot more useful something like JASSM to take out a column of trucks or tanks though. I totally understand that SPEAR 3 can do a lot, but it’s not best suited for long range anti ship strike when there are other weapons out there that will likely be integrated on F-35 at the same time SPEAR 3 is.

    • ASRAAM & AMRAAM in air to air roles. US has been delaying integration of METEOR which was supposed to have been operational this year.
      The US are desperate to Integrate AIM260 first which is the highest priority weapon in the US.
      America will never buy air to air weapons which are not domestically designed & manufactured. They are very parochial and have a highly protected America first system which is enshrined in US law

      • After the Munich dressing down and the D.C. Debacle with President Zelenskyy, it seems that USA is unreliable and a supplier not an Ally.

        More Eurofighter Typhoon purchase and investment in Tempest programme would seem to be an appropriate response to a supplier that is late and over budget.

        Time to put Europe first…

        • I would add to that to pump money into MBDA in developing competitors to US missiles.
          Not SM3 obviously, but any work done to replace the US exquisite capabilities in SEAD/DEAD and AWACS would be welcome.
          An ideal role for Britain in the new NATO, perhaps?

  3. At last progress on UK weapons on F35B.

    Does this mean that the new technology insert and Blk 4 software update are progressing? Not heard or see anything on these updates.

    Cheers CR

    • There’s about 70 weapons from various countries (including the USA) waiting for Block 4. This test seems to indicate that delivery of Block 4 may be within sight, at last….

      • That’s a lot of peed off customers. If I remember rightly LM reported reduced deliveries and income due to delays on the Blk 4 update. Jim, below suggests that Blk 4 has been superseded by smaller incremental updates. All of which suggests LM have finally got a grip, probably because their customers have been sticking the boot in and may be even with holding payments. Nothing like a hit on the bottom line to focus a CEO’s mind.

        Anyway, some good news.

        Cheers CR

        • Well I believe the US was refusing to accept further deliveries until the situation was resolved so F35s piling up at LM…
          Amazing what can happen when the customer starts impacting your bottom line.

          • The USAF have accepted an interim standard not full TR3 to get things moving – There was such a stockpile of aircraft at Fort Worth something had to give. LM also concerned export customers may pivot away from F35 due to US current approach

          • Just as LM should be. The value of NATO interoperability goes down when USA doesn’t support Allies with ISTAR and sensor network capabilities.
            Former Allies will be doing risk assessment and contingency planning including the ordered but not supplied aircraft, or pushing back delivery to send a message that businessmen can understand…

    • Block IV no longer exists, it’s been split up into lots of increments. Tech Refresh 3 is now done and the software blocks we need are nearly done.

      • That sounds promising. Sometimes smaller steps are better than trying to be too clever. Perhaps things will speed up now.

        We were discussing an extra 24 F35B but my understanding was that we were making weapon integration a condition. So with that hurdle now being addressed and an up tick in defence spending, may be, just may be…

        Cheers CR

          • Not sure. I don’t think so. I have only seen AMRAAM/Meteor carried internally on any of the F35 variants. But I couldn’t see why not in the future if a suitable external launcher is developed for the wing pylons. F35A and C will be able to carry 6 AMRAAMs internally.

          • An extra rack for another Meteor and or ASRAAM would be a useful force multiplier. And we can only imagine what the missile capacity of Tempest will be!

          • Would it be worth it, really?
            F35 as a BVR fighter is mostly working off stealth to get close enough to the enemy that the missile is nearly guaranteed to hit.
            Far better to leave missile trucking to Typhoon, to be fired from out of harms’ way.
            Of course, Tempest looks to be both stealthy and a missile truck, so that will be fun!

  6. An F35B with the new radar armed with Meteor will be the most deadly air to air platform in the world. The F35B armed with SPEAR 3 will be the most deadly SEAD platform in the world. Only the UK will have these capabilities this decade.

    • Surely we can get something done negativity into this?

      This positivity won’t play well with the carriers are useless with XYZ and the F35B is useless.

    • “The F35B armed with SPEAR 3 will be the most deadly SEAD platform in the world. Only the UK will have these capabilities this decade.”

      I think the USN might disagree with you. As capable as the F35 is, when it comes to SEAD, I don’t think it really compares to a dedicated platform like the growler with the entire suite of nest generation jammers and the AARGM-ER

        • Thing is, you can carry far fewer AARGM-ER internally than Spear-3.

          Is swarm more effective than brute force, especially with modern SAM capability?

      • The USN would very much agree with me, that’s why they have storm breaker and they are developing a powered version of storm breaker. AARGM-ER is a fourth generation weapon for fourth generation aircraft like F18G.

        F35 can do its own ECM/ELINT and can use a weapon like SPEAR or storm breaker carried internally and take out multiple radars without them even knowing they are being targeted. F18G with AARGM-ER cant do that. It’s also a one trick pony. SPEAR can also take out armoured vehicles, radars or terrorists in a Toyota all in one go.

        SPEAR is also about ten times cheaper.

        • Jim,

          If you truly believe the stormbreaker weapon can do the same thing as mach 4,homing anti radiation missile, then I don’t know what to tell you.

          • Unless the Spear 3 has a HARM capability that hasn’t been declared, then looking at it from a loadout perspective is absolutely the wrong way to look at it. The primary and almost sole target for the AARGM-ER are integrated air defence radars. As stated before this is a high supersonic speed weapon designed to home in on relocatable SAM radars from over 300km away. This is well beyond the range of the Spear 3 class of weapons and I think we can safely assume it’s target set is completely different from the target set requirements of the spear 3.

          • True.
            Not sure what AARGM costs, but maybe what we really need is MBDA to develop an ARM bi-mode seeker for Meteor (would that retain anti-AWACS, do you think?).
            At its most efficient speed, Meteor probably has a range comparable with, if not exceeding, the rocket powered AARGM.
            That gets you 2 ARMs a side with BVR, or 4 if you go only WVR AAMs.

        • Powered Storm breaker is so annoying.
          Once again, the USAF have seen a highly desirable foreign product (Spear) and instead of just buying it have gone out of their way to produce a domestic equivalent.

          • We don’t know if the powered Stormbreaker will fill the exact same niche as the SPEAR3 yet. It could be longer range, have a longer footprint, and not fit 4 to a bay like SPEAR3, we just don’t know at this point. A recent interview on the Fighter Pilot Podcast gives some info about Powered Stormbreaker, it seems to be starting as a ground based weapon first. The Raytheon rep said that the booster stack would be the same for both ground and air launched versions. It might be a bigger weapon than SPEAR3, intended for different things. Unfortunately there is PLENTY of room in the market these days for every available weapons system that can be produced in quantity. SPEAR3 might do some things better than whatever powered Stormbreaker will be, and vice-versa.

          • There’s already Ground Launched SDB1, which uses a rocket from MLRS.
            If you just substituted Stormbreaker for SDB1, you’d get a ridiculous range but only 2 per side on F35.
            If you want 4 there won’t be much range ground launched.

          • Yes, there are probably plenty of cases where SPEAR 3 would be more useful than powered Stormbreaker, and plenty of customers might prefer one to the other for specific reasons. Ground launched SDB1 famously didn’t work very well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Powered Stormbreaker is very different.

          • I remember US senators lobbying to buy Brimstone as it worked, was available and easy to integrate. What happened? They write a spec around Brimstone and pay to develop JAGM. There is an EW version of SPEAR on the boards

        • Hi Jim. Taking nothing away from the SPEAR3 and Stormbreaker, but the ARRGM-ER is also a premier new weapon. The powered Stormbreaker is a Raytheon-funded initiative at this point which they plan to test this year, but it hasn’t been tested or selected yet and isn’t in service.

          While the F/A-18E/F and E/A-18 are the first USN aircraft to get it, ARRGM-ER is definitely being integrated into USN/USMC F-35Cs. It is also the basis for the USAF’s new, multi-role Sand In Attack Weapon (SIAW), which will also absolutely, positively be integrated into the F-35.

          SPEAR3 and Stormbreaker are phenomenal and have many uses, but they aren’t ideal for every situation, any more than ARRGM-ER is.

          It’s tough to argue against F-35 with stand off-range strike weapons like ARRGM-ER, SIAW, LRASM, JASSM, JSM etc.

    • So you believe both METEOR & SPEAR3 will be integrated and in service before 2030. Not what I’m told.

  7. It will be interesting to see how the AIM 260A when it arrives in US service compares and if it will be available for export to other F35 users.
    The AIM 260 will have the same footprint as Amraam but a 50% range increase over Amraam D.
    I assume the US will not want a rival to their missile snapping up sales to F35 users.
    Add an anti radar seeker to Meteor and it would add some serious capability.

    • Depends where you get the radar data from?

      It could be another platform like an E7?

      That is sent to the missile in a mid course correction?

      The need for lots of missile flavours is less than you might think. Much better off with a big pile of multi use missiles.

    • Official renders of the AIM-260 just dropped this week on a USN document, not sure when integration into the F-35 will happen exactly, but that program seems to be moving along as well. I think there is plenty of space in the market for both AIM-260 and Meteor. It would only make sense that existing Meteor users will want them in their F-35s.

      • Now that the relationship with USA has changed from Ally to supplier, many F35 customers will be reviewing their orders with a Europe first perspective.
        Local production is a proven model, and may be required for existing orders to survive.

    • I believe we signed an agreement with Japan to develop the Meteor further, with Japan developing a AESA radar seeker for the ‘new’ missile. Not sure how that is progressing…

      (was reported by George about 3 years ago.)

      Cheers CR

      • I may be wrong but I think they gave up on it as the seeker adaptation proved too problematical. Others may know more however.

        • I have had a look around online and an article on War Zone from the 14th Jan this year. They also suggest that the Anglo Japanese missile didn’t get beyond the paper study stage. Apparently, it was assessed to be too slow (only 3.5mach).

          However, it appears that stuff might still be going on as Tempest will need a new long range missile something that actually goes further and faster than Meteor as the Chinese are developing long range weapons and big stealth fighters with long endurance. Something dubbed J-36 by the west has recently been seen with a really big internal weapons bay…

          Cheers CR

    • Indeed may not ultimately have as much range as some stated Russian and Chinese missiles but certainly has the biggest probable kill capability at long range due to its longer powered velocity and manoeuvrability in those long range kill envelopes.

      • The difference between claims and reality has been seen in Ukraine with the invisible T14 Amarta and Su-57 stealth fighter.

        Starting hares running after defence spending is excellent misinformation operation value for FSB.

  10. This can’t be labelled a success Meteor and the F35 have been in service for years now, and they’re only now flying a dummy weapon.. the US is putting SM-6s on FA18s and we dont even have a BVR weapon on out carriers fighters….

    • We use AMRAAM on F-35B if we have the AIM-120D variant it has about a 100mile range whilst earlier variants have a range in the 60mile bracket so yeh we do have a BVR missile, just not in the class of the Meteor.

      Cheers CR

  11. Middle of next decade? Mech fit is easy, waiting for TR3 and Block 4. When will these upgrades happen.
    LM are twitchy at some of the rumours circulating and suddenly want to prove progress.

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