On July 19, it will be a decade since Lockheed Martin delivered the UK's first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Today, the aircraft is beginning to make its mark on the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy. British F-35s have made operational debuts from land and sea in the skies over Syria and Iraq, embarked and completed a transoceanic deployment aboard the UK's new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier, and advanced cooperation with other F-35 operators. However, the program remains controversial in the UK because of its perceived high operating costs and the apparently glacial pace of the fleet buildup. Budget cutbacks have slowed the delivery rate, preventing a second front-line squadron from forming, and the Lightning Force-the joint Royal Air Force and Royal Navy construct that operates the aircraft-has struggled to hang on to personnel, in particular engineers. Yet, officers remain positive about the outlook for the fighter. Even though 2022 was seen as a period of reset for the force after the eight-month Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 21 cruise to the Indo-Paciflc region, the UK's training system is delivering trained personnel, and the F-35 force has thrown itself into operations in Eastern Europe as part of reassurance initiatives and combat air patrols following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "The original plan was this would be a reset year to regenerate capability," Group Capt. Philip Marr, station commander of RAF Marham, the UK's main F-35 operating base, tells Aviation Week. "They were literally straight back in from the carrier deployment supporting NATO partners." As well as flying combat air patrol sorties over Poland in conjunction with RAF Eurofighter Typhoons, the UK F-35s also conducted operations from Amari, Estonia, in deployments that were set up over days rather than weeks and months.
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