Although possible, I don’t see it as likely. 17sqn will be a jointly RN/RAF manned unit covering all the Trials and training duties. With only 48 aircraft in Tranche 1 there simply won’t be enough airframes to form a separate RN training unit too, much as we’d all like to see one. Out of the initial 48 aircraft, I expect there to only 17, 617 and 800NAS formed. the latter two units will take up 12 aircraft each at least, as will 17sqn, so that’s 36 aircraft allocated and 12 spares in mainteance/storage. Tranche 2 becomes an inevitability in the early 2020s if any other units are to stand up at all, unless standing sqn sizes are to be drastically downsized.

You beat me to the keyboard there Obi 😉

Yep there is no point operating a separate OCU/OEU with so few in the first tranche and them all being based at Marham in a common pool which as I have said before will be shared between squadrons. Whilst different airframes will get painted in different badge numbers, that won’t reflect how they will be allocated in service as is already happening in particular with our GR4. Navy pilots will work with 17 squadron on an as needed basis in parallel with the work done in the US in particular with the USMC. The other two badge numbers make sense, 617 is kind of sacred and 800 NAS has seniority in the FAA. I would argue that less then twelve airframes will be held in storage as they will no doubt adopt the maintenance on demand model that is working well with Typhoon. I am a strong supporter now of holding off further procurement until the 2020’s as that will allow purchase costs to be brought down as economies of scale build up. Also airframes purchased later will benefit from current development work and risk reduction thus avoiding fleet within fleet syndrome as fixes and upgrades are back-fitted. By purchasing later blocks you get more sorted examples avoiding those issues! I would actually prefer that we work the airframes harder rather then buy more to placed in storage to balance FI to OSD. If F-35 is going to be in production for the next twenty to thirty years I think we should work the earlier airframes hard acknowledging that they wouldn’t get to type OSD and then retire for parting out whilst newer examples are purchased off the line. So rather then having a repeat of the Tornado GR1 to GR4 mid life update program where stored airframes with lower hours were not used as they didn’t have all the fixes that higher hour examples had we retire and buy nice shiny new ones with everything there from the get go!

Well the BAE Systems simulator has been reconfigured quickly, I remember a report only a few months ago demonstrating how it is being used to simulate CATOBAR operations. SRVL is being promoted heavily in this video, the good news by the looks of it is little training will be required to keep RAF pilots available as a surge capability for the carriers. Actually the synthetic training aids are so good less airframe hours should be needed to keep the pilots current on the type.

http://bfbs.com/news/england/jump-jet-simulator-smoothes-out-landings-63336.html

Yes it is so difficult for people to get out of this line of thinking that a proportion of the aircraft will be given to the RAF and the rest to the FAA. That is not how F-35B will be operated, all the aircraft will be held in a common pool based at Marham with airframes being allocated to any task on a rotating basis. This has the advantage of balancing maintenance, airframe hours and FI. An F-35B might be flown on a Monday by an 617 squadron pilot and on Tuesday by an 800 NAS pilot. The markings on that F-35B might be those of 17 Squadron.

UK Navy pilot flies first F-35 sortie

http://www.eglin.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123344099

Some really nice pictures in this report:

http://www.eglin.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/2013/04/130410-F-zz999-657.JPG

http://www.eglin.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/2013/04/130410-F-zz999-656.JPG

http://www.eglin.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/2013/04/130410-F-zz999-658.JPG