Royal Navy Activates First F-35B Unit, Big Decisions On Type’s Future Loom

As Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Airpower and Technology at the Royal United Services Institute says: “If you were buying, for example, two squadrons’ worth of primarily land-based F-35s, it would start to make sense to buy As … you are introducing a lot of additional inefficiency and lack of flexibility there, so, unless it is a significant chunk of additional aeroplanes, it does not really make sense. If it is another, let us say, 16 on top of the 27 [in Tranche 2], it probably makes sense to stick with Bs.”