mutley 4,493 Posted May 29, 2018 Report Share Posted May 29, 2018 (Well four of them) 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. They are expected to be followed by five more F35s at the beginning of August. 617 squadron on stand by please! More here: https://metro.co.uk/2018/05/29/britains-new-9000000000-f-35-stealth-fighters-arrive-next-week-7585795/amp/ 1 Link to post Share on other sites
wain 879 Posted May 29, 2018 Report Share Posted May 29, 2018 to many zeros for my head.....how much? is that per plane or the whole deal? Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,493 Posted May 29, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 29, 2018 Whole deal Wayne, they love to bandy around all those zeros! EDIT: They cost a mere £100 million each! https://www.forces.net/news/f-35b-jets-set-arrive-uk-next-week Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted May 29, 2018 Report Share Posted May 29, 2018 Expensive toys for sure. Hopefully by the time the RN gets theirs we'll see a lot more of them over Portsmouth. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted May 29, 2018 Report Share Posted May 29, 2018 There's another side to the economics for your country, however. "British companies say their involvement in the F-35 jet production is boosting business" https://www.aol.co.uk/news/2018/01/17/british-companies-say-their-involvement-in-the-f-35-jet-producti/?guccounter=1 "...15% of each aircraft will be UK made." "...the programme has generated 12.9 billion dollars in contracts for British suppliers." "The company which is based in Middlesex said their involvement with the programme will sustain approximately 700 jobs." 3 Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted May 30, 2018 Report Share Posted May 30, 2018 (edited) I for one am looking forward to seeing the aircraft in service. For sure it's not pretty, but then neither was the Harrier. Many people, myself included, have been very sceptical about the purchase of these things, especially given the time scale and unit price where we could have got something proven in service for a lot less. That said the current crop of top range naval aircraft is now several years out of date compared to F-35 and by adopting it it will give our Air Force and Navy a quantum jump ahead of the game. Whether it can deliver remains to be seen , it has big boots to fill to achieve the Harrier and Jaguars service life which is essentially what it will be replacing. Time will tell but I hope it's good news. Edited May 30, 2018 by dodgy-alan 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Soaranden 84 Posted May 31, 2018 Report Share Posted May 31, 2018 I've taken quite a bit of interest in this thread. I was in the Marine Corps Air Wing, and one of my active duty stations was the Marine Corps Air Station at Beaufort, South Carolina. I was there for a couple of years, and I was excited to learn that British pilots have been training in F-35Bs at Beaufort. I did a screenshot of what it might look like when the first F-35B arrives at Marham. I'll have some new FSX AI flights to set up, that's for sure! 4 Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,493 Posted May 31, 2018 Author Report Share Posted May 31, 2018 Nice picture! Looking forward to seeing these up close. Link to post Share on other sites
wain 879 Posted June 1, 2018 Report Share Posted June 1, 2018 nice shot, looks the business... Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted June 2, 2018 Report Share Posted June 2, 2018 For me the important thing about the arrival of these aircraft is that Britain is another step near having a credible naval air power again. Link to post Share on other sites
Tristarcaptain 282 Posted June 3, 2018 Report Share Posted June 3, 2018 On 29/05/2018 at 11:32, mutley said: Whole deal Wayne, they love to bandy around all those zeros! EDIT: They cost a mere £100 million each! https://www.forces.net/news/f-35b-jets-set-arrive-uk-next-week I thought that the whole ethos of the JSF and F-35 program was for an affordable plane?!! I think that it was a BIG mistake to retire the Harrier when they did. I bet there was still more life in it. Sure, it was an old design.....but so is the B-52 and that is still going strong! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted June 3, 2018 Report Share Posted June 3, 2018 10 hours ago, Tristarcaptain said: I think that it was a BIG mistake to retire the Harrier when they did. I bet there was still more life in it. Sure, it was an old design.....but so is the B-52 and that is still going strong! The stupid thing is is the Royal Navy still has a number of them that they use for ground handling training and other related stuff. All perfectly useable and regularly run, they just aren't allowed to fly them! Harrier should have stayed in service until the F-35 was ready for deployment. But that's this country all over, they make stupid decisions and then regret it! When the Falklands Conflict started Margaret Thatcher wanted to send the Ark Royal down there,.....until she was informed that the previous government had scrapped it to save money! So no Buccaneers or Phantoms available to hit the Argies with. The Buccs would have flattened Goose green and Stanley airfields as precision bombing was their speciality. The procurement decisions made by this country are laughable, so many screw ups it's unreal! Link to post Share on other sites
Tristarcaptain 282 Posted June 3, 2018 Report Share Posted June 3, 2018 42 minutes ago, dodgy-alan said: The stupid thing is is the Royal Navy still has a number of them that they use for ground handling training and other related stuff. All perfectly useable and regularly run, they just aren't allowed to fly them! Harrier should have stayed in service until the F-35 was ready for deployment. But that's this country all over, they make stupid decisions and then regret it! When the Falklands Conflict started Margaret Thatcher wanted to send the Ark Royal down there,.....until she was informed that the previous government had scrapped it to save money! So no Buccaneers or Phantoms available to hit the Argies with. The Buccs would have flattened Goose green and Stanley airfields as precision bombing was their speciality. The procurement decisions made by this country are laughable, so many screw ups it's unreal! (Martin doing his best to impersonate Basil Fawlty from the episode 'The Germans') "Don't mention the TSR2!" 2 Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted June 7, 2018 Report Share Posted June 7, 2018 (edited) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44392148 First 4 down , one turned back, Impressive beasts I must say. Edited June 7, 2018 by dodgy-alan 1 Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,493 Posted June 8, 2018 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2018 Thanks for the update Al 1 Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted June 11, 2018 Report Share Posted June 11, 2018 On 07/06/2018 at 22:36, dodgy-alan said: First 4 down , one turned back, Impressive beasts I must say. I am glad to see we have a return to manufacture guarantee on them! 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites
needles 1,011 Posted June 11, 2018 Report Share Posted June 11, 2018 They do indeed look beefy machines. All that power just at your fingertips. Good stuff. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted July 7, 2018 Report Share Posted July 7, 2018 On 02/06/2018 at 23:35, Tristarcaptain said: I thought that the whole ethos of the JSF and F-35 program was for an affordable plane?!! F-35 is the "low" end of a high-low strategy, along with F-22. It's very similar to the F-15/F-16 high/low mix of a few decades ago except that the production of F-22s was stopped early with too few built. The low end, the F-35, though expensive, is considerably cheaper than the F-22 and is anticipated to be built and sold in much larger numbers. $100 million a pop isn't chump change, but if you want to be able to run with the top-dog pack in the world today, it's not going to be cheap. The idea was to build a relatively small number of the very best available and a large number of cheaper but still very capable siblings. It worked out pretty well for the F-15/F-16 mix. One difference between the F-15/F-16 and F-22/F-35 analogy is that F-22 is not being sold to any overseas customers. There is a proposal under consideration to build an advanced F-22 variant for Japan, but not sure where that stands or if it is a real possibility or not. I think the plan calls for them to be built in Japan if it goes forward, but not sure I'm remembering that correctly. Another difference is that there were no naval versions nor VSTOL versions of the F-16 but there are, of course, of the F-35. John Link to post Share on other sites
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