{"id":53226,"date":"2023-09-28T19:30:56","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T17:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=53226"},"modified":"2024-09-28T00:05:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-27T22:05:22","slug":"the-purchase-of-the-f-35-by-czechs-and-romanians-bad-news-for-the-spanish-navy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/09\/28\/the-purchase-of-the-f-35-by-czechs-and-romanians-bad-news-for-the-spanish-navy\/","title":{"rendered":"The purchase of the F-35 by Czechs and Romanians, bad news for the Spanish Navy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week the ever-growing club of NATO countries that have opted for the F-35 fifth-generation fighter has expanded a little more.<\/p>\n

The plans of Spain to replace its EF-18M fighters: will the F-35 finally arrive?<\/a><\/rel>
\nWhat will happen to the red and yellow roundels if Spain decides to buy the F-35?<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

The Czech Republic and Romania join the F-35 club<\/big><\/p>\n

So far, NATO countries that have already received their F-35s or that have acquired them and are waiting to receive them<\/strong> are the US, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, Countries Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom. Also, this Monday Romania has confirmed the purchase of 48 F-35<\/a> in two phases, to replace its F fighters -16. On Wednesday, the Czech Republic confirmed the acquisition of 24 F-35<\/a> to replace to the JAS-39 Gripen fighters that it has rented from Sweden.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
An artist's representation of one of the future F-35s of the Polish Air Force (Photo: Lockheed Martin<\/a>).<\/div>\n

For European defense it is good news that more and more NATO countries are equipping themselves with a fifth generation combat aircraft. However, for Spain it is not good news, since the Spanish government has not yet decided on this fighter<\/strong>, even though it has no other option to replace the Harrier IIs operated by its Navy. That bad news is related to the delivery times of the F-35.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The waiting lists to receive the F-35 already extend until 2035<\/big><\/p>\n

In January, while he was already making plans to purchase his F-35s, The Czech Republic began to consider extending the lease of its Gripen fighters until 2035<\/a>, as it fears that Lockheed Martin will not be able to deliver its fifth-generation fighters before then. That gives us an idea of current F-35 delivery times<\/strong>, which have already been delayed in some countries, largely due to the delivery forecasts for the Tech Refresh version 3 (TR-3)<\/a>, with lower production than initially announced (97 F-35s in 2023, compared to a previous estimate of between 100 and 120).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
An F-35 of the Norwegian Air Force (Photo: Hedwig Halgunset<\/a>).<\/div>\n

The F-35 would not arrive in time to replace the last EF-18M<\/big><\/p>\n

Thus, although Spain would soon announce the purchase of the F-35<\/strong>, as it is possible that it will do within the framework of the Halc\u00f3n II program that we already talked about here<\/a> (which would include F-35B for the Navy and also possibly some F-35 for the Air Force), would join behind Czechs and Romanians on a waiting list whose deliveries could begin in 2035<\/strong>, in case of that there are no further delays.<\/p>\n

This waiting list is bad news for the Air Force, because the end of the operational life of the EF-18M fighters is expected in 2030<\/a>. However, the Air Force will still have its Eurofighter fighters to carry out its missions, although with a reduced fleet, which would leave one fighter wing inoperative (possibly the 15th Wing), or two fighter wings. (12 and 15) at medium performance.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
A Harrier II of the Spanish Navy flying alongside a British F-35 at the RIAT last July (Photo: BAE Systems Air<\/a>).<\/div>\n

The Navy would be left without combat aircraft for almost a decade<\/big><\/p>\n

The worst news is for Spanish naval aviation. Let us remember that in 2020 the Navy already indicated that it would need the F-35 in 5 or 6 years<\/a>, due to the end of the operational life of the Harrier II<\/strong >. An F-35 delivery deadline for the year 2035 would have a foreseeable consequence: the Navy would be left without fixed-wing combat aircraft for almost a decade<\/strong>, a great loss of capabilities that is due exclusively , to the indecision of Pedro S\u00e1nchez's government<\/strong> when it came to purchasing the only possible substitute that the Harrier II has on the market today.<\/p>\n

---<\/p>\n

Main photo: U.S. Navy.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week the ever-growing club of NATO countries that have opted for the F-35 fifth-generation fighter has expanded a little more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,11545],"tags":[19248,10737,7072,10923,18682,11875,10669],"class_list":["post-53226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-navy","tag-czech-air-force","tag-czech-republic","tag-lockheed-martin-f-35-lightning-ii","tag-romania","tag-romanian-air-force","tag-spanish-air-force","tag-spanish-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}