The US Department of Defense F-35 Joint Program Office has awarded a contract worth more than £80 million to Lockheed Martin to deliver the initial training, engineering, maintenance and logistics support for the UK’s F-35 Lightning II fleet over a three-year period.
The company has sub-contracted work worth £40 million to BAE Systems. Together, they will establish a team of more than 100 people at RAF Marham (near King’s Lynn) to provide engineering and technical expertise, deliver air-crew and ground-crew training, facilitate routine maintenance and help to manage the jets’ global supply chain.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: “Nothing demonstrates the strength of the relationship between the UK and the USA better than our joint work on the most advanced combat aircraft in the world — the F-35 Lightning II — and the UK is proud to be the future hub for all the European jets.
“The additional investment at RAF Marham will ensure that we have a formidable fighting force that will help us work with our US partners to promote international peace and security.”
Work is already underway to prepare RAF Marham for the arrival of 617 Squadron, which will fly the UK’s first F-35 Lightning II jets from next year onwards.