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German F-35 crews will train in Arkansas for two years before a jet is based in Germany
Lockheed Martin handed over the first of Germany's 35 aircraft in Fort Worth on September 18. Pilot training starts in Arkansas this fall, and the program reaches full operational capability in 2029, a year before the Tornado nuclear mission has to transfer.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Lockheed Martin presented Germany's first F-35A to the German government on September 18 at its production plant in Fort Worth, Texas, the first of 35 aircraft Berlin has on order.
- Lockheed Martin plans to send the first F-35s to Germany in late 2027, with full operational capability planned for 2029.
- Defense News reported the jets take over the nuclear weapons mission by 2030 from the PA-200 Tornados based at Tactical Air Wing 33 in Buechel.
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Why it matters
- decision There is about one year between full operational capability in 2029 and the 2030 date for taking the nuclear mission off the Tornado, so a slip forces Berlin to pay for more Tornado service or accept a gap in the mission.
- constraint The qualification pipeline for the crews who will fly that mission sits on a US Air National Guard base, so ramp space and training throughput are set by a host Germany does not control.
- cost The signed deal works out to about $251 million per aircraft, which is the size of the line that moves every time a tail is added to or cut from the buy.
- capability Germany's crews join a fleet Lockheed Martin says already has more than 1,355 operational aircraft and a million flight hours across 42 bases, so the training and sustainment base exists before the first German-based jet lands.
A German officer reading Lockheed Martin's release gets two delivery dates. The company said it plans to deliver the first aircraft this year [3], and the same release puts the first F-35s in Germany in late 2027 [5]. Both can be accurate. The handover at Fort Worth moved an airframe into German hands [1]; the 2027 date is when one sits on a German ramp. Pilot training at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Arkansas begins this fall [4], roughly two years before that [3].
The money comes in two figures as well. Breaking Defense put the deal Berlin signed in 2022, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at $8.8 billion [8]. Earlier that year the US State Department approved a possible sale of up to 35 F-35As along with munitions and related equipment, at an estimated $8.4 billion, according to a July 2022 Defense News report published on the F-35 website [9]. The signed number is $400 million above that estimate [2]. The State Department figure explicitly included munitions and related equipment; the reporting does not say what the $8.8 billion covers.
Boris Pistorius, the German defense minister, said in Lockheed's release: "This is the beginning of a new era for the German Air Force: the new F-35A fighter jet is the world's most advanced combat aircraft" [12]. Lt. Gen. Holger Neumann, chief of the German Air and Space Force, said the aircraft "will not only bring significant changes in our Air and Space Force but will also influence how we think, command and fight" [13]. Neumann is describing crew qualification and command procedure. Those move on the training calendar at Ebbing, not on the ceremony date in Texas.
Any rollout has three dates, and suppliers usually publish one. There is the date the asset changes hands, the date users can work with it in their own environment, and the date they can do the job without the training staff behind them. The useful question to put to a supplier is which of the three a promised date names, and the follow-up is what covers the work in between. Germany's release publishes all three and files them under one program: this year, late 2027, and 2029 [3][5][6].
What to watch
- Whether the first eight airframes reach Ebbing Air National Guard Base on the fall schedule.
- Movement in the late-2027 in-country date: the 2030 Tornado handover deadline does not move with it.
- Whether Berlin funds Tornado service beyond 2030 as cover against a slip in 2029.