With the expectation that Tranche 3B will be cancelled, and unless any additional overseas orders materialise, then production will cease at the end of Tranche 3A in 2016. Even with a limited overseas order it will finish before 2020.

Typhoon, understanding the Tranches and Blocks

There are two issues that dominate the fighter business today. Between them, they determine the future of every program outside China and Russia.

The first is the future of JSF. The TBR has taken a good deal of risk out of the SDD schedule (allowing certain bumptious idiots to blather about being "ahead of schedule") but there are, today, no authentic estimates for procurement cost, because there isn't an approved procurement program. The original (2001) approval to start the SDD and LRIP phases, Milestone B, was rescinded last year after the Nunn-McCurdy breach.

At some point, however, there has to be a real, SecDef-approved estimate for costs, and there is a possibility that such costs will be (1) too high for the US to procure in planned numbers and (2) much higher than politicians and military leaders in most of the partner countries had promised. The result will be a "death spiral", with a further increase in costs and cut in numbers. There is another elephant, too, in the shape of operating costs.

The second is India. They have the money and the will to buy a fighter, and whichever one they choose gets a new lease on life, and likely becomes JSF's main competitor. The only exceptions are the F-16I and MiG-35, considered as outsiders.

Sorry LO, title of this thread is 'Why is the RAF buying the F-35?' not 'The Future of F-35' or 'India's Fighter Procurement Aspirations'. There are other old threads for such non-objective analyses.

Many, pre-PAK FA/J-20, would have also said:

F-22 for the USAF?
Too much technology, too few airframes.

Perhaps not any more.....

Likely won't see many (if any) post 2030. Tranche 3 (sans AESA) will find itself towards the back of the pack 2020-2030.

ICBM - I was responding re. the future of Typhoon and should have made myself clearer.

Fact is, we don't know what anyone's future looks like until the two issues I mentioned have been resolved.

we don't know what anyone's future looks like until the two issues I mentioned have been resolved.

Yes, the military-industrial complex awaits your verdict.

... A question about the Meteor missile: how much British domestic content does it have?

Yes, the military-industrial complex awaits your verdict.

Seriously, what is the point of that comment?

April 5, 2011, 1:13 PM ET.

“Let Them Eat Fighter Jets!”: GOP Cuts Spare Defense.

By Avi Salzman

Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) proposed budget plan would cut $5.8 trillion from the budget in the next decade, upending Medicare and Medicaid and gutting many social programs. But Ryan’s budget treads lightly in a few other areas, including defense.

Ryan’s 2012 budget essentially accepts the president’s proposal for a $553 billion defense budget and $117 billion in spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also adheres to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ plan to cut $178 billion from the budget over the next five years, writes Citi analyst Jason Gursky in a note out today.

“In our view, this supports our thesis that defense budgets are not about to face dramatic declines given what appears to be bipartisan support for Sec. Gates’ savings initiatives,” Gursky writes.
...

“Let Them Eat Fighter Jets!”: GOP Cuts Spare Defense - Stocks To Watch Today - Barrons.com


In other words, all three versions of F-35 continue.

In other words, the fact that bad news (that nobody expected or predicted) has not come about is presented by F-35 fan as a vindication of the program.

Elsewhere, the news that SDD is (for the first time) not falling further behind the already-five-years-late schedule is being greeted with relief-of-Mafeking scenes of jubilation.

To avoid failure, reinvent success!