Ready for take-off, UK’s £100m stealth jets
BRITAIN’S cutting-edge new stealth fighter jets are expected to touch down on UK soil from as early as next week, it emerged yesterday.
The supersonic F-35 Lightning aircraft – which are reported to cost almost £100million each – have been stationed in America since their manufacture, being tested and used for training by RAF and Royal Navy pilots.
Four of the jets are due to cross the Atlantic in the first trip, which could happen any time from June 5, it is understood. Five more will follow by the beginning of August.
The jets, based at US Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina, are now being prepared for the trip to RAF Marham in Norfolk where they will join 617 Squadron – the wartime Dambusters.
Wing Commander Scott Williams, Britain’s senior representative in Beaufort, said: ‘We are going to be sad to see our colleagues leave, but we know that a year from now everyone is going to be back together at RAF Marham and building the UK Lightning Force.’
The wing commander is also the officer commanding 207 Squadron, which will become the UK’s F-35 training unit from July 2019. Britain currently has 15 F-35Bs – the short take-off and vertical landing variant of the jets – based in the US, and has pledged to purchase 138 in total.
Royal Navy pilot Lieutenant ‘Hux’, who can be identified only by his nickname, has been learning to fly the F-35B.
The 26-year-old said: ‘This is the first time the UK has operated something like this. We are constantly looking forward to new revisions of the software that are going to enable us to do more and more. It isn’t just another iteration of the previous aeroplane, it is totally new from the ground up. It is going to be a game-changing capability.’