Two years late, the first of our £100m stealth jets roars into Britain
THE RAF’s latest fighter jet touched down in the UK for the first time last night.
The world’s most advanced stealth aircraft landed at RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, after flying from the US with a Briton at the controls.
The £100million F-35B Lightning II jet – joined by two more owned by the US Marine Corps – will take part in a series of air shows across the UK next month.
It will carry out its first flight over its new base at RAF Marham, Norfolk, and over two aircraft carriers currently being built in Scotland. Its arrival came two years after it pulled out of air shows because of an engine fire.
The Ministry of Defence has so far bought eight of the jets, which are due to fly off the carriers by 2020.
Four of them are currently in their test and evaluation stage and it is one of those that arrived in the UK.
Two other American jets are due to join the trio that landed last night.
Carrying an array of laser-guided missiles and bombs, it has a range of 1,300
‘Formidable fighting force’
miles. The Lockheed Martin jet, developed in America, uses radar-absorbent coatings, as well as flat surfaces, sharp edges and fibre mats to deflect radar, allowing it to strike the enemy before they even know the aircraft is nearby.
It is expected to be the backbone of Allied air power for the next 50 years.
The jets took off from South Carolina early yesterday. The RAF pilot flying the British plane was Squadron Leader Hugh Nichols 38, from Epsom, Surrey.
He became the first British pilot to make a vertical landing in a F35-B at the Eglin Air Force Base in the US in March 2014. He studied at the University of York before joining the RAF in April 2000. He was then selected for an exchange with the US Air Force.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said of their arrival: ‘The F-35Bs are the most advanced fast jets in the world. Whether operating from land or from one of our two new aircraft carriers, they will ensure we have a formidable fighting force.’ The F-35 will go on show for the first time at the Farnborough Air Show and the Royal International Air Tattoo in Gloucestershire next month. Britain has said it will have 48 of the jump jet F-35Bs by 2023 and will eventually go on to buy a fleet of 138, split between the Royal Navy’s carriers and the RAF. Britain’s first squadron of F-35s should be combat ready by 2018. But following a Brexit vote, analysts have warned the fall of the pound will make the purchase of the jets more expensive.