§ Mr. HoyleTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many joint strike fighter aircraft have been ordered. [128535]
§ Mr. IngramNone. Our current planning assumption is for 150 of the Short Take Off and Vertical Landing variant of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft to meet our requirement for a Future Joint Combat Aircraft. In order to align with the US acquisition cycle, we do not expect to place orders for JSF aircraft before 2006.