BAe confirms: RAF Tornado fleet to be retired in 2019...

[Stratofreighter]

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... ae-375014/

UK Tornado fleet to retire in 2019, says BAE
London 59 minutes ago

Royal Air Force operations with the Panavia Tornado GR4 are to conclude before the end of this decade, with the Eurofighter Typhoon and Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II to assume its duties.

"The out-of-service date for the UK Tornado fleet has been confirmed by the MoD [Ministry of Defence] as March 2019," BAE Systems said in its half-year results statement on 2 August.

More at http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... ae-375014/ .

[SquAdmin]

So, currently the RAF is operating 124 Tornado's. Anyone know how many F-35B's and additional Typhoons will be delivered in order to replace those?

[DJdeRidder]

The decision about how many F-35s they need will be made in the Strategic Defence and Security Review of 2015. A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, I read the MoD talked about getting only 48 F-35s. So probably about 16-20 by 2015..

[Coati]

The decision about how many F-35s they need will be made in the Strategic Defence and Security Review of 2015. A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, I read the MoD talked about getting only 48 F-35s. So probably about 16-20 by 2015..

The 48 F-35s are F-35Bs which will be used for the carriers. For Tornado replacement nothing is yet decided about numbers etc, but the UK already announced they will place follow on orders for the land based version, the F-35A, possible up to a number of 138 (so 90 F-35A and 48 F-35B).