Britain’s super stealth fighters ‘need overhauls’
BRITAIN’S fleet of F-35 super stealth fighters is underpowered and will need costly engine overhauls, officials in the US have revealed.
The revolutionary plane has only been in service with the RAF since 2012 but now a Pentagon briefing has been told that all F-35s will need improvements.
A special hearing convened by the House Armed Services Committee was told that the American Pratt &Whitney F135 engines used in all F-35 variants have been “under specification” since the beginning of the project.
The Royal Navy and the RAF operate the F-35B aircraft, mainly from the new Queen Elizabethclass carriers, and often in a joint capacity with US Marine Corps’ own F-35B.
The “under-speccing” of the engines is not a safety issue but does mean that expensive overhauls will need to take place earlier than the Ministry of Defence expected.
According to aviation experts, it means the engines have to routinely operate at higher-thanexpected temperatures, increasing the need for maintenance.
The original plan had been to develop an alternative engine for the F-35 family, from General Electric/rolls-royce, but this was cancelled at a late stage in
2011 due to high costs.
With the benefit of hindsight – and now including yesterday’s revelation – this has increasingly appeared to have been a short-sighted decision. The UK has so far ordered 48 F-35BS – with 24 currently in service with the RAF’S 617 Squadron – at a cost of almost £100million per aircraft.
US Air Force Lt Gen Michael Schmidt, current head of the F-35 Joint Program Office, said: “We have been eating into the life of this engine since the beginning of the programme, because we did under-spec the engine and its requirements.
“We are building costs into this programme, with additional overhauls expected over the life of the programme.”
The UK was expected to purchase more than 80 F-35BS but defence chiefs are now focused on the new Global Combat Air Programme project to build a sixth generation stealth jet in conjunction with Japan and Italy by 2035.
In the meantime, the MOD has awarded a new £161million contract for the maintenance and support of its F-35 Lightning stealth jet fleet.
The investment, which will “ensure readiness for global combat operations”, is expected to sustain 130 civilian jobs at RAF Marham, in Norfolk, and a further 10 throughout the supply chain.
MOD sources said that the contract it chimed with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s commitment to bolster the economy by creating better-paying jobs and opportunities across the UK.
The MOD was approached for comment.