A year after their arrival to home shores, Britain’s Lockheed Martin F-35 operations are gathering pace.
The nine-strong fleet, joined by an additional six aircraft on July 16, were declared operational in January, then deployed overseas and performed their first operational missions over Syria.
The flights over Syria were the culmination of Exercise Lightning Dawn, which saw six of the B-model short-takeoff-and-landing versions of the F-35 sent to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, proving the ability to deploy the aircraft to a remote location away from the normal logistics chain.
The UK also sent a deployable operations facility to support the Cyprus mission.
British F-35s flew 16 missions over Syria and Iraq as part of anti-Islamic State group mission.
“Lightning Dawn was a proof of concept,” says Wing Commander John Butcher, who is commanding the Royal Air Force’s 617 Sqdn., the first British front line unit to fly the F-35.
“We were assessing the many elements that support Lightning at range, mission support systems as well as getting spares out to Akrotiri,” he says.
At Akrotiri the F-35s flew a range of air-to-air and air-to-ground exercises, “the whole gambit,” Butcher says, routinely flying four-ship training missions.
Flying from Cyprus, even while their counterparts in the Eurofighter Typhoon community were flying live missions, provided a “stable test” environment.
“It’s a little like a science experiment, you know what good looks like,” says Butcher, “If you go where other combat aircraft are operating, you can really do an assessment about how you are performing. . . . It is a stable and known environment for us to go to.”
Among the components being proven was a deployable operations facility, a large secure unit containing the classified computer servers and other systems and equipment to support UK F-35 operations. The facility was flown to Cyprus by four Boeing C-17airlifters.
The UK now has 15 F-35s based in mainland Britain, following the arrival of aircraft to form a training unit, 207 Sqdn. on July 16. Credit: Sgt. Steve Buckley/Royal Air Force

Butcher says the footprint of F-35 deployments is scalable. In Cyprus the aircraft deployed with a spares pack, but the squadron also leaned on the wider F-35 global support system.
“The [global support] system now works as advertised,” says Butcher. “If we start working NATO operations in the future and you are flying with an F-35 partner, you want that ability to help each other out and keep each other operating.”
As the F-35s returned from Cyprus, two of the British aircraft visited the Italian Air Force’s F-35 base at Amendola, where they flew with F-35s from Italy and the U.S.
During that visit, which used virtually no logistics footprint, one of the aircraft required a spare that was available in Amendola’s base spares pack, and that part was made available in a “few hours,” says Butcher.
Squadron pilots, including Butcher, also flew a joint exercise with U.S. and Israeli F-35s during the deployment, with the F-35’s flying a prebriefed mission against simulated threats. The F-35s came out on top, notes Butcher.
While in Cyprus, the F-35s recorded their highest flying rate since they were moved to the UK, and the squadron flew 50% more missions than originally planned.
“We had cleared out a lot of scheduled maintenance for the first month [of the deployment], so we were able to hit the ground running,” says Butcher. “We had done a lot of research to understand what we needed to do to operate at range, and we are confident we got the formula.” 
Once the exercise element of the deployment was complete, the F-35s went on to fly 16 sorties over Syria equipped with Raytheon Paveway IV precision guided bombs and AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles (Amraam) for self-defense, although no ordnance was dropped.
“We were very happy with how [the F-35] performed. . . . The big eyes and ears of the aircraft were wide open,” says Butcher.
“You are not just using a single sensor at a time; the aircraft systems are breaking down the information and delivering it to the pilot in good order,” he adds.
Since returning from Cyprus, the F-35s have begun using the new £550 million ($690 million) Project Anvil facilities built for the F-35 at their main operating base at Marham, England. These include training facilities, a refurbished runway and vertical landing pads. The arrival on July 16 of the additional six aircraft, including the UK’s newest aircraft, its 18th of the type, paves the way for the establishment of the operational conversion unit, 207 Sqdn. on Aug. 1. The first pilot courses are due to commence in September. Three of the 18 are based at Edwards AFB, California.
The arrival of 207 Sqdn.’s aircraft is representative of the growing F-35 presence on British soil.
In February, construction work began on new facilities to support U.S. Air Force F-35s at RAF Lakenheath, which will be home to 54 F-35s operated across two squadrons. The first F-35As will arrive in late 2021 and operate alongside two units flying the F-15E Strike Eagle and another flying the F-15C Eagle. The addition of the two F-35 units will grow Lakenheath’s 49th Fighter Wing by an additional 1,244 personnel, the first of which will begin arriving in early 2021.
Basing the F-35 at Lakenheath is a “great opportunity to reinforce our strategic relationship with the UK and in particular with the Royal Air Force at Marham,” says Gen. Jeffrey Harrigian, commander of the U.S. Air Force in Europe.
“Recent deployments [of the F-35] have reinforced how we are going to operate with our partners here [in Europe],” he tells Aviation Week. “So to be so close to our partners at Marham, we can not only work together from an operational perspective, but garner their lessons and share ours, and really focus on how we best interoperate to achieve the effects we are required to deliver.”