F-35 gets big vote of confidence from United Kingdom
FORT WORTH -- The F-35 joint strike fighter is flying high on news that the United Kingdom is reaffirming its commitment to the sleek and stealthy aircraft while Canada’s defense minister said it is premature to say that his country will pull out of the billion-dollar program it helped develop.
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s unqualified support of the F-35 program came in a defense budget report that said Britain will not only stick by its plans to buy 138 airplanes, but that it will accelerate its purchases by establishing an additional fighter squadron.
Cameron’s validation of the F-35 follows his promises to join airstrikes in Syria against terrorists following the deadly attacks in Paris earlier this month as well as the downing of an Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai desert by a bomb.
“This is vital at a time when the threats to our country are growing,” Cameron wrote in the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. “From the rise of ISIL and the greater instability in the Middle East, to the crisis in the Ukraine .... the world is more dangerous and uncertain today than five years ago.”
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