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The United Kingdom’s fighter jet fleet modernization program is said to be aiming for a long-term goal of 138 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters. That number includes the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, but as of this year, only 48 examples of the F-35B jump jet variant have been procured. That said, there is an order for 12 of the F-35A model, and one of the F-35Bs was lost in a mishap, leaving the actual force strength at 47 jets.
The F-35B is the successor to the Hawker Siddeley Harrier that was once the premier tactical airframe flown from the decks of the ‘ski jump’ carrier fleet of the Royal Navy. The Fleet Air Arm was downsized to a shadow of itself in 2011 when budget cuts led to the immediate decommissioning of all remaining Harrier GR9 jump jets and the flagship carrier HMS Ark Royal. The capability gap that this created was immediately evident during the intervention in Libya, and that same year, when the UK had no carrier to enforce a no-fly zone.
Fast forward to 2026, the new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers have been steadily proving themselves since the first vessel, by the same name, was officially commissioned in 2017. The first F-35B landed on the deck in June 2021, and since then, the largest air wing of these stealth jets assembled at sea consisted of 24 jets embarked in late 2025. However, government disputes over the high cost of the Joint Strike Fighter have significantly slowed the rate of new airframe procurement.
The UK is the only tier one partner in the JSF program and has completely fulfilled its initial order of F-35B jets. Although the original goal has not officially been changed, the total lifetime cost of the fleet has tripled to over £71 billion ($96.14 billion). The enormous investment by the UK in the F-35 was intended to be a long-term solution for stealth airpower, but the continuously snowballing cost is now casting doubts on whether the fleet will truly be fully assembled.
Project Vanquish: The Fleet Air Arm Of The Future
While the UK remains committed to the F-35 as its primary carrier-borne fighter, significant dissatisfaction with program costs and evolving concerns regarding long-term US reliability have led to a major strategic pivot. Currently, the UK expects to receive its 75th F-35 by 2033, according to the UK Defense Journal. The Royal Navy is potentially moving away from relying primarily on crewed STOVL fighters and instead increasing investment in a hybrid air wing that utilizes domestic drone and uncrewed technology to reduce reliance on the US.
The Royal Navy’s primary alternative is not another crewed aircraft, but a suite of autonomous systems designed to operate alongside a smaller fleet of F-35Bs. Project Vanquish was established in 2026 with the goal of demonstrating jet-powered autonomous Jerome capability that is compatible with the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier. Like the US Navy and US Air Force pursuing the collaborative combat aircraft, or loyal wingman drone, the UK is now reprioritizing uncrewed options for its Lightning carrier force.
Just last month, the first production-grade Boeing MQ-25A Stingray took flight in its first demonstration for the US Navy. That flight was a watershed moment for the future of uncrewed naval aviation. Although the American Navy is not seeking to replace crewed platforms but rather complement them with a drone that can perform air-to-air refueling and surveillance, Project Vanquish aims for more.
The aviation transformation strategy seeks to employ drones that can perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance as well as strike and air-to-air refueling. This program aims for the integration of ‘uncrewed where possible’ and ‘crewed where necessary’ to achieve the highest capability per dollar for the Royal Navy by leveraging the rapid progression of uncrewed aerial vehicle technology in recent years.
American Friction & The Kill Switch Question
The F-35B is the most expensive variant in the Joint Strike Fighter family. The F-35A flyaway price can be as low as $80 to $90 million, depending on the contract details, yet the jump jet model nearly doubles that with a price tag of around $120 to $130 million. Additionally, the incredibly complex engine systems inside of it demand greater maintenance in complexity, frequency, and cost intensity. While the UK is the most significant partner of the 19 total in the multinational program, and has a special relationship with the US, this is still a financial strain.
Compounding the concern over the budget is the recent issues that have emerged between the Trump administration and the government of the UK. The mercurial statesmanship of the US and the tariff war that it has waged on even the closest of its allies has resulted in some allies, like Switzerland and Spain, canceling or reconsidering their F-35 deals.
Janes notes that the US has previously threatened to block F-35 deployments to the UK over decisions regarding Chinese 5G technology, highlighting how the platform can be used as political leverage. There has also been a great deal of controversy over the fact that the United States holds close to unilateral control over software for the entire global fleet of more than 1,300 F-35 aircraft in service with 19 air forces and counting. Viewed as a kind of ‘kill switch’, this has been a controversial plan in contention for Canada and Denmark, as well as others like Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.
In a move that confirms an interest in less American reliance, the UK just recently announced that its Royal Navy would be initiating a new European Joint Naval Force. This force aims to police Russian activities with nine other European countries outside of NATO and excluding the US as a move toward closer relations with its regional partners.
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The Future Of Air Power In The United Kingdom
The original goal of 138 aircraft is now widely viewed as dead. Current projections aim for 75 aircraft by 2033, according to UK Defence Journal. That includes a mix of 63 carrier-capable F-35Bs and 12 land-based F-35As. However, these may be the last examples of the F-35 being delivered to the Royal Air Force or Royal Navy.
The F-35A was selected over more Eurofighter Typhoons because it is both a stealth platform and dual-capable, meaning it is certified to carry US B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs. This allows the RAF to resume an airborne nuclear role for the first time since the Cold War, strengthening NATO’s collective deterrent. The F-35A is approximately 25% cheaper to operate and maintain than the carrier-capable F-35B. It also has a greater combat radius and payload.
With the fulfillment of the initial order of 48 F-35B jump jets for the Fleet Air Arm, it now looks very unlikely that any will be purchased for the Royal Air Force and land-based roles. Although the BAE Aerospace Systems assembly line for the Eurofighter Typhoon has been officially shut down, a recent commitment of £650 million to upgrade the fleet to a 4.5-generation standard appears to be creating a bridge to the sixth-generation era.
If the UK were to instead extend the life of its existing Typhoon fleet instead of ordering more F-35 jets, it could potentially avoid a capability gap until the sixth-generation global combat air program can manifest production-grade stealth fighters. The Joint program with Italy and Japan would create a sovereign fighter supply chain and industrial base. This would also push the RAF toward a crewed-uncrewed teaming model with more drones, as the Royal Navy is now considering for its future fleet composition.
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Operation Highmast: The Fleet Air Arm Sets Sail
HMS Prince of Wales, commissioned in 2019, led its first global deployment in 2025. The second carrier in the Royal Navy’s new fleet traveled 33,000 miles to the Indo-Pacific. The mission proved the capability of a purely British air wing, eventually assembling a record 24 UK F-35Bs on deck for NATO exercise Falcon Strike in the Mediterranean. The success of this mission allowed the UK to declare full operating capability of the carrier strike group since the HMS Ark Royal was sent to mothball.
This was the first deployment when HMS Prince of Wales was able to conduct all operations solely using aircraft from the Royal Navy without any augmentation from United States Marine Corps F-35B augmentees. The crucial proving point came during exercise Falcon Strike. The Fleet Air Arm proved that its squadrons were able to conduct complex, high-tempo missions in the F-35B solely through command and coordination with the Royal Navy strike group.
In a series of complex trials and simulations, the pilots of squadrons 809 and 617, along with the crew of HMS Prince of Wales, executed everything from air intersections to suppression of enemy air defense missions. The deployment demonstrated that the UK could sustain these high-end fifth-generation operations over an eight-month, 33,000-mile mission to the Pacific and back without continuous external support, as USNI reported.
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The Immortals Rise Again: Recommissioning 809 NAS
The modern Fleet Air Arm operates alongside the RAF under a unified command structure. 809 Naval Air Squadron, known as The Immortals, was officially reformed as the Fleet Air Arm’s first frontline F-35B unit in 2023. They joined the RAF’s 617 Squadron, dubbed The Dambusters, to provide the carrier’s primary strike capability. The two active squadrons are supported by the 207 operational conversion unit at RAF Marham, which trains new F-35B pilots.
Standing the Immortals back up officially reestablished the Royal Navy’s sovereign ‘Lightning Force’ carrier capability. A shortage of spare parts and ground support made things more difficult, but the return of the Immortals to frontline service successfully moved past the capability gap of the 2010s. They made a deployment of HMS Queen Elizabeth, and 2021 was marred by the crash of an F-35B in the Mediterranean.
However, improvements demonstrated last year that the Royal Navy no longer relies on allied aircraft to field a credible carrier air wing. Still, political and financial concerns over the F-35 program and its spiraling costs, as well as the dominance of the American government over the program despite the UK’s largest partner-level investment, have stalled upgrades to the new fleet.
The shipborne rolling vertical landing technology for the F-35B would allow Squadron 809 and 617 to operate with significantly higher payloads, but it remains in development due to delays and budget cuts. Similarly, advanced standoff weapons like the Spear 3 missile have been pushed to the 2030s at the earliest, leaving the F-35B limited to the existing Paveway guided bombs for the time being.
