UK May Not Upgrade All F-35s To Block 4

LONDON—The British ministry of defense has hinted that not all of the UK’s F-35 fleet may go through the Block 4 upgrade process. 

Responding to Parliamentary written questions, Defense Procurement Minister Jeremy Quin said the Block 4 upgrade, part of the F-35 program’s continuous capability development and delivery (C2D2), “has been included in the UK F-35 program budget since its inception.” He added that the number of aircraft to be upgraded “will be made on the basis of military capability requirements.” 

Not upgrading all the F-35s would be surprising, given that the modernization delivers the integration of two UK-developed weapons—the MBDA Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile and the Selective Precision Effects At Range (SPEAR 3) networked-enabled weapon. The upgrade would also add a tactical penetrator version of the Paveway IV weapon and the Block 6 model of MBDA’s Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile. 

Quin notes that the cost of the Block upgrade is managed through the F-35 Joint Program Office, and because the government is one of the partners in the F-35 program it is unable to share detailed price information.

The UK currently has 18 B-model F-35s, 15 of which are stationed in the UK gearing up for carrier-based operations from the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, with a first operational voyage planned for May 2021.

Forty-eight B-models are on order and should all be delivered by 2025 to support carrier operations. But the UK said during its 2015 Strategic Defense and Security Review that it was committed to its full complement of 138 F-35s over the lifetime of the program. More details on this are expected to emerge in a planned integrated review of the UK’s defense, security and foreign policy, Quin told Parliament in March. 

The review process has been delayed by the novel coronavirus pandemic but is likely to report later this year or in 2021.