The first of Britain’s most advanced fighter jets, the F-35 Lightning warplanes, have touched down on UK soil.
The multimillion-pound supersonic aircraft have been stationed in America since their manufacture, being tested and used for training by Royal Air Force and Royal Navy pilots.
Four of the jets, which had been based at US Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, crossed the Atlantic, in a journey more than eight hours long, to become permanently stationed in the UK.
Landing at RAF Marham in Norfolk, the home base of the F-35, the fighter jets touched down two months ahead of schedule at around 8pm, with the officer commanding 617 squadron, Wing Commander John Butcher, doing so first. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: ‘These formidable fighters are a national statement of our intent to protect ourselves and our allies from intensifying threats across the world.
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