Almost one month after announcing ‘delivery’ of the last UK F-35B, the aircraft finally made it to its East Anglia home, although two aircraft remained stuck on the Azores.
UK ‘completes’ F-35B deliveries – postscript
The last aircraft in the first tranche of F-35Bs for the UK (ZM182/048) departing on a test flight at Fort Worth. (Lockheed Martin)
In the Warsight article ‘The uncomfortable facts behind UK F-35 deliveries’ we revealed that although the UK Ministry of Defence had announced on 29 March 2026 that the UK had ‘accepted’ the final aircraft in its order for 48 F-35Bs, that did not mean that all had been delivered to the UK. At that point, the three final aircraft remained at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth factory and two more remained ‘marooned’ at Lajes on the Azores, having ‘gone tech’ during their planned delivery flight in early March.
The aircraft at Lajes remained there on 25 April, only a few days short of the ‘end of April’ deadline for deliveries to be completed.
The final three aircraft, however, have finally made it to RAF Marham, arriving on 23 April.
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