The arrival of Poland's first two F-35A Husarz stealth fighters at Ebbing Air Base

Two days before Christmas, Poland has received two big gifts with wings: its first fifth-generation fighter aircraft.

Lockheed Martin presents the F-35A Husarz, the new winged hussar of the Polish Air Force
The Polish Air Force has already completed its fleet of new FA-50GF Golden Eagle fighters

The two aircraft, numbered 3501 and 3502, arrived at the Air National Guard (ANG) base in Ebbing, Arkansas, on Monday morning. They will be used there to train the first Polish F-35A pilots from January 2025 on the US base. Here you can see the video published by the ANG showing the landing of these fighters:

In 2000, the former conservative Polish government signed a contract to purchase 32 F-35A Lightning II fighters for the Polish Air Force. The Polish F-35s are of the conventional takeoff and landing variant for dry land runways, the same version used by the United States Air Force (USAF). The F-35s will replace two Soviet fighter models still in service in Poland: the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 and the Sukhoi Su-22.

Once delivered to Poland, the F-35s will be deployed at two air bases: Łask (in central Poland, where F-16 fighters currently operate) and Świdwin (in the north-west of the country, from where Polish Su-22s currently fly).

On August 28, on the occasion of Święto Lotnictwa Polskiego (Polish Aviation Day), Lockheed Martin held the presentation of the first of these fighters, nicknamed "Husarz", in honor of the famous Polish winged hussars - the best heavy cavalry of their time - who liberated the city of Vienna at the Battle of Kahlenberg in 1683, with a sweeping charge led by King John III Sobieski against the Ottoman forces.

These aircraft will be the Polish Air Force's first fifth-generation fighters, the first to be stealthy (i.e. with a very low radar signature that will allow them to go unnoticed), and they are also the first Polish military aircraft to carry the traditional Polish checkerboard pattern in a low-visibility version, i.e. in two shades of grey instead of the white and red colours of the Polish national flag, something that has sparked some debate in that country.