Harkins wrote: ↑Thu Jun 26, 2025 6:54 am
Malcolm wrote: ↑Wed Jun 25, 2025 10:31 pm
It's the 138 jets in service at the same time that will never happen. The current 'plan' is 138 jets over the lifetime of the program, and with the carriers supposedly going into the 2060's there is no way the jets currently in service will last that long. I'd expect the number in service at any one time to be capped at around 65-75, and Marham can cope with that many. Once the oldest jets get to the end of their lives they're retired and replaced with new builds.
Not been near Marham since its facelift, but can it really accommodate up to 75 jets? And where do they live these days? Are they mixed between large hangars and HASs? Just thinking a bit about the recent drone job on Putins nuke force and how vulnerable the F-35s might be. I guess if things got to that level of tension they may already be dispersed.
The current google earth images show 12 HAS's in the south western shelter area, and another 12 HAS's in the eastern shelter area. In the Tornado days it was fairly common to put two jets in one HAS. So in theory that's 48 secure parking spots in HAS's in addition to the 20 or so sun sheds. Then you've got the large north and southside hangars for spannering before you start worrying about the older northside cold war hangars.
With an in-service fleet of 75 you can guestimate that 3 will be in the USA for testing, probably 4-6 at Cherry Point for upgrades leaving perhaps 60-65 actually at Marham. It's not unreasonable for 25-30% of a fleet to be in the hangars for regular maintainance so of that 60-65 you probably only need to accomodate 40-50 in HAS's or sun shelters for day to day use.
I'm a lot less bothered about the vulnerability of the F-35's at Marham than the Voyagers at Brize. The F-35's (and Typhoons) ain't goin' nowhere (nukes or no nukes) without tanker support.
