Poland has reached a critical milestone in its quest to field a modern force of fighter aircraft.
The NATO member’s first two Lockheed Martin F-35As have departed Lockheed’s final assembly and check-out site in Fort Worth, Texas and will now be used for training Polish air force pilots.
The two fighters left Texas in late December, transferring to Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Arkansas, which will host partner training for certain F-35 Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers in the coming years. These include Poland, Finland, Singapore, Germany and Switzerland.
“The arrival of Poland’s first F-35s is a significant milestone for our state, the nation and our allies who will train on this fifth-generation fighter at Ebbing Air National Guard Base,” says Brigadier General Chad Bridges, Arkansas’ top National Guard officer.
Warsaw eventually plans to field 32 conventional take-off and landing F-35As, which will operate locally with the moniker “Husarz”. That fleet is scheduled to reach full operational capability by 2030. Lockheed displayed the first jet (designated tail number AZ-01) last August.
The Polish fleet will be split between bases in the cities of Lask and Swidwin. Lask currently hosts a squadron operating Lockheed F-16C/Ds, while Swidwin is home to a unit flying Soviet-origin Sukhoi Su-22 ground-attack jets.
The US Air Force (USAF) selected Ebbing to host F-35 FMS pilot training in 2023, with the base supplementing an existing F-35 FMS training detachment at Hill AFB in Utah.
Environmental regulations capped the number of F-35s approved to operate from Hill at 24 aircraft, according to the USAF. The addition of Ebbing will allow the FMS training programme to expand capacity by 50%, with plans to station 12 F-35s at the site.
Participants in the programme commit their first tranche of F-35s to remaining in the USA for several years, where they are used to establish a first cohort of certified instructor pilots and maintainers. These crews will then stand-up F-35 training operations in their home countries as more jets become available.
When sufficient capacity has been developed, the fighters will be relocated to to their home country.
In addition to F-35 operations, the training site at Ebbing will host an F-16 training detachment for the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF).
Hampered by congested airspace and limited domestic territory, the Southeast Asia city-state has trained F-16 crews in the USA since the 1980s. Singapore and the USA operate a joint fighter squadron at Luke AFB near Phoenix, Arizona for that purpose.
Singapore flies 60 older F-16C/Ds, which it is upgrading to the latest F-16V standard.
The RSAF also has placed orders for eight conventional F-35As and 12 short take-off and vertical landing F-35Bs, with delivery of the first four B-models expected in 2026. The subsequent eight F-35Bs are to be delivered in 2028, with the F-35As expected sometime around 2030.
Ryan Finnerty is the Americas defence reporter for FlightGlobal.com and Flight International magazine, covering military aviation and the defence industry. He is a former United States Army officer and previously reported for America’s National Public Radio system in New York and Hawaii covering energy, economics and military affairs.View full Profile
