The first F-35A Lightning II built for the Luftwaffe has been handed to the German government at Lockheed Martin’s plant in Fort Worth, Texas. The Sept. 18 ceremony opened the delivery run for a 35-jet program meant to take over from the Tornado, which the Luftwaffe has flown since the 1980s.
The jet will not head east right away. The first eight German aircraft go to Arkansas for pilot training beginning this fall, and the first F-35s are due to arrive in Germany in late 2027, according to the manufacturer.
Lockheed Martin’s Sept. 18 release on the rollout states: “Germany’s program of record calls for 35 F-35As. The first eight aircraft will be delivered to Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Arkansas for pilot training beginning this fall. The first German F-35s will arrive in-country in late 2027.” The company said senior government and military leaders from Germany and the United States attended alongside employees and industry partners.
From budget approval to the first airframe
The purchase has been nearly four years in the making. Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence reported on Dec. 14, 2022, that the Bundestag’s budget committee had cleared the purchase of 35 F-35As for about 8.3 billion euros, paid from the Bundeswehr’s special defense fund. The ministry said the package covers engines, mission equipment, spare parts, logistics support, training and weapons, and that it runs through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales process between the two governments.
The Bundeswehr’s own equipment page for the F-35A, dated Sept. 11, 2026, says the new jet “löst den seit den 1980er-Jahren in der Luftwaffe eingesetzten Tornado schrittweise ab,” meaning it gradually replaces the Tornado, in Luftwaffe service since the 1980s.
Lockheed Martin’s Germany program page lays out the milestones in between: the Letter of Offer and Acceptance for 35 aircraft signed in 2022, production of the first German F-35 beginning in 2024, and Rheinmetall starting center-fuselage production at Weeze, Germany, in 2025. The company’s rollout release adds that German industry has contributed to the F-35 program since its inception in 2001.
The Luftwaffe’s view of the jet
The head of Germany’s air arm framed the aircraft as a change in how the service will operate, not only what it flies.
“With the F-35, the German Air and Space Force is receiving a modern, proven and highly capable 5th Generation fighter jet. It will not only bring significant changes in our Air and Space Force but will also influence how we think, command and fight.”
That was Lt. Gen. Holger Neumann, chief of the German Air and Space Force, in the Lockheed Martin release. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, also quoted there, said full operational capability is to be reached by 2029.
Joining a large fleet
Germany enters a program with a long production run behind it. Lockheed Martin says in the same Sept. 18 release that more than 1,355 F-35s are currently operational around the globe, and that 20 nations, 13 of them in Europe, have selected the aircraft. The company adds that the fleet “has surpassed a million flight hours” and operates from 42 bases worldwide, including 12 nations flying it on home soil.
OJ Sanchez, president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, said in the release that the company is “proud to build on more than 50 years of partnership” with Germany. Those figures are the manufacturer’s, and the German program’s own measures of success, including the 2029 operational target, are still ahead.
The next verified step is at Ebbing, where the first eight German F-35As are slated to begin pilot training this fall, ahead of the first jets reaching Germany in late 2027.
Top image: A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, in 2014. It is the same F-35A type Germany is receiving, not a German aircraft. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Darlene Seltmann — Public domain / Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Combat Rated editors prior to publication.