The UK is poised to receive its first Lockheed Martin F-35B produced in the stealth fighter’s new Technical Refresh 3 (TR-3) standard, while the airframer steps up its campaign to secure a follow-on production order from the nation.
Lockheed has so far handed over 35 of the 48 short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) jets ordered to date for use by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy (RN). That so-called Tranche 1 purchase represents only just over one-third of the UK’s long-held programme of record requirement for 138 F-35s.
“The 36th jet will stay in the United States and work at [NAS] Patuxent River and Edwards AFB for operational test,” says Mike Shoemaker, Lockheed’s vice-president, F-35 customer programmes. “The 37th will show up in December, and the next four jets in the spring time.”
The latter shipment of TR-3-standard aircraft is being planned to occur ahead of the RN’s Carrier Strike Group 25 deployment, he notes.
“For the remaining seven, Block 17 jets, our intent is to deliver those before the end of the year [2025],” Shoemaker says.
Acceptance of the 48th aircraft will coincide with the UK declaring full operational capability with its F-35Bs for both aircraft carrier- and land-based tasks. The type is in use with the RAF’s 617 Sqn and the RN’s 809 NAS, both home-based at RAF Marham in Norfolk.
UK aircraft recently took part in the NATO exercise Strike Warrior, during which they were embarked aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales for a five-week period.
Meanwhile, Lockheed is promoting the F-35 programme’s importance to its UK supply chain as the nation’s government advances a major Strategic Defence Review (SDR) process. The airframer notes that the enterprise currently supports over 20,000 jobs at more than 500 UK companies.
“From the very start of the programme, we have harnessed the ingenuity of British engineering technology to play a full role in realising the world’s most advanced combat aircraft,” says Lockheed Martin UK chief executive Paul Livingston.
Lockheed projects that the UK’s role in the programme – which includes BAE Systems manufacturing the rear fuselage section of every F-35 produced, and Rolls-Royce the LiftFan propulsion system for the F-35B – will result in a “gross value add” to its economy of £45.2 billion ($58.7 billion) over the nation’s procurement spend.
As such, Livingston claims that the F-35 will deliver “the largest benefit of any past, current or future combat air programme” for the UK. “There is no doubt about the value for money for the taxpayer,” he adds.
The company’s estimate is based on the UK’s commitment to the programme since 2007, completing a full 138-unit procurement, and on Lockheed continuing production until 2046.
“With some operators ordering more [aircraft] and new customers still coming onboard the programme, we are confident that value will increase,” Livingston said during a media event in London on 28 October.
“We want to see the 138 [aircraft] programme of record met, because as Europe, if we are trying to deter major state-on-state conflict, we are going to do it with NATO,” he says.
Lockheed notes that other existing and future operators of the F-35 on the continent include alliance members Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland.
“Only the F-35 programme can deliver what the nation needs now,” Livingston claims. “With combat air mass critical to the Royal Air Force, the F-35 provides a cost-effective path to boost our war-fighting capability in a realistic timeframe and with low costs.”
Also in the mix as the UK government determines its defence-spending priorities is the nation’s participation in the Global Combat Air Programme with Italy and Japan. That effort seeks to field a new, so-called “sixth-generation” manned fighter from 2035, along with supporting technologies.
“The MoD [Ministry of Defence] is assessing what their Future Combat Air System is,” Livingston says. “It will be a mix of platforms, and the F-35 will be part of that.”
As such, Lockheed is hoping that once completed, the SDR will include a commitment for a Tranche 2 production order for F-35s, to be produced in a future Block 4 configuration.
Beyond London’s budgetary constraints, one potential area of friction around a future order is the long-delayed process of adding UK-specific weapons to the F-35 platform.
Despite its status as the US programme’s sole ’Tier One’ partner, the UK was unable to get MBDA’s Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile integrated with the F-35 during the current Block 3 production phase. There remains no firm timeline set for adding the weapon, or the MBDA Spear air-to-surface missile.
Shoemaker says decisions around such work are made by the US F-35 Joint Program Office and all programme partners, and that priorities are currently being assessed for a future Block 4 standard.
“We have to take in the maturity levels of the capabilities and the capacity of our labs and flight-test [operation] to deliver,” he adds, pointing to the limitations exposed during the ongoing certification effort for the TR-3 update. Deliveries of the new standard were halted for almost a year until July 2024, and are now advancing with a restricted approval for training use only.
Shoemaker notes that Lockheed had by late October delivered 1,059 F-35s, with the global fleet scheduled to pass the 1 million flight hour mark before the end of 2024.
The UK’s current F-35Bs have to date accumulated more than 19,000 flight hours, with almost 50 pilots and 1,300 maintainers having been trained on the type for the nation.
Lockheed notes that the US military’s current planning calls for the F-35 to remain in operational use until around 2082.
