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hat a day. What an opportunity to
show off the F-35,” smiled Wg Cdr
John ‘Butch’ Butcher as he talked to
reporters at RAF Marham having led the first
four British Lightnings to their new home.
Butcher is the new Officer Commanding
No 617 Squadron ‘Dambusters’, which
reformed earlier this year in the
US. “This is probably the biggest
moment in my RAF career to date,” he said.
Speaking of the 4,000-mile (6,437km), eight-
and-a-half-hour, transatlantic crossing to the
UK from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort,
South Carolina, Butcher added: “The weather
was in our favour. We flew in cloud for two
hours and we had periods of intense focus,
but also some time where we could relax
a little. The four jets had no issues and
we [undertook] nine refuelling brackets.
“Bringing the four-ship over the top of
Marham, it was brilliant to be the first one
to touch down. Now we’ve got the jetsback we need to make sure we can safely
operate the aircraft, then we will get into
the exercises and mission rehearsals for us
to get to IOC [initial operating capability].
We’re in a good place [to make IOC].”
Chief of the Air Staff ACM Sir Stephen
Hillier said: “In the RAF’s centenary year, it’s
great to see the most advanced and dynamic
fighter jet in our history arrive today at RAF
Marham – and with the modern ‘Dambusters’
in the cockpit, this homecoming truly feels
like an historic moment in British air power.
If you can’t see us coming, you won’t beable to stop us, so with its stealth and other
world-beating technologies the F-35 Lightning
takes the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy
to a whole a new level of capability.”
Speaking of the flight itself, Hillier added:
“Eight-and-a-half hours in a single-seat
fighter aircraft is quite fatiguing. That
demonstrates a level of skill of our pilots
and engineers. It also demonstrates our
ability to reach across the globe and deploy
our military capability wherever it needs to
be and do that very quickly. So
it’s an impressive achievement.”ABOVE: The rst four F-35Bs for No 617
Squadron – ZM145, 146, 147 and 148, which
made the transatlantic ight as callsign ‘Rafair
9511-14’. Crown Copyright/Cpl Tim Laurence
RIGHT: Wg Cdr John Butcher takes on fuel
from an RAF Voyager during the transit to the
UK. Crown Copyright/SAC Nicholas Egan