Royal Navy F-35B Meteor missile release test, Digi Mart USA News (Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland): An F-35B has released an inert Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile from its internal weapons bay for the first time. The test is a small but welcome step in the long-delayed effort to integrate British weapons on the Lightning.
The trial took place at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland on October 7 but was announced by MBDA and the F-35 Joint Program Office on November 5. The sortie was flown by a Royal Navy test pilot from the Air and Space Warfare Centre, working with the joint UK-US F-35 Integrated Test Force.
The weapon test asset was dropped from the internal bay without its rocket motor firing or control surfaces activating. The purpose was to confirm it could separate safely from the aircraft and gather aerodynamic data to refine models used ahead of more demanding release trials.
Meteor will now be released across a wider range of flight conditions before the program moves to live firings. Integration will eventually give British F-35Bs a substantial improvement in beyond-visual-range air combat compared with their existing AIM-120 AMRAAM armament.
The Meteor integration program is a joint UK-Italian effort, with Britain leading work on the F-35B and Italy sponsoring integration on the conventional take-off F-35A. Italy operates both variants.
The RAF has had Meteor in service for almost eight years on the Typhoon, yet its F-35Bs are still some way from being able to employ it. Meteor and the SPEAR-3 precision strike missile have been planned for the Lightning for many years, but neither is yet available operationally.
The source article argues that SPEAR-3 is the more pressing requirement, since the F-35B already has a credible beyond-visual-range weapon in AMRAAM but lacks a powered stand-off precision strike weapon.
In October, the Ministry of Defence confirmed that the complete SPEAR-3 integration program and release to service is now expected in the early 2030s, dependent partly on US-led priorities and the availability of F-35 test aircraft. As recently as April, fielding had been targeted for financial year 2028-29.
The delay has prompted the UK to approve the acquisition of the US GBU-53/B StormBreaker, also known as Small Diameter Bomb II, as an interim stand-off weapon until SPEAR 3 becomes available. The source describes the successful Meteor release as a move in the right direction, but one that also illustrates how much work remains before the UK can exploit the F-35B with the weapons originally intended for it.
