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It might seem dated in an era of cyber attacks and information warfare, but air power remains the defining military capability of our times. At the RAF Museum in Hendon old aircraft point to a glorious past for Britain's air force in this, its 100th year. But the RAF is undergoing a generational shift. And this is what the future looks like, the F-35 Lightning fighter jet, US-made and costing around 100 million pounds each, the fifth-generation warplane doesn't come cheap. British military chiefs argue it is essential if Britain is to deal with a resurgent Russia and an increasingly contested airspace.
From this summer, 14 of the jets will be transferred from their American training bases to RAF Marham in Norfolk. Half a billion pounds is being spent on getting things ready.
What F-35B does is it takes us a step further. So it allows us to get ahead of what the enemy may do to us. And it's that generational leap that's required, taking us in our 100th year as a Royal Air Force into our next 100 years.
From the summer, this will be the home of the F-35, Britain's new state-of-the-art stealth fighter jet, which will become the Air Force's front-line aircraft. But its arrival comes at a time of uncertainty over the UK's defence budget and amid searching questions about Britain's role as a global military power.
With so much money committed to two new aircraft carriers, Britain's armed forces are feeling the squeeze. The defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, has asked for more time to make his case for more money for defence.
So what is the RAF's combat jet capability? The UK currently has 137 Typhoon jets, which will continue in service until 2014. It also has 40 Tornadoes. And from this summer, they will be joined by 14 F-35s, the first batch of 48 which will be in service by the mid-2020s. Despite this, some analysts say the focus on the new jets could leave the RAF vulnerable elsewhere.
The RAF is most vulnerable in terms of cuts to the sort of critical enabling bits and pieces, the modernisation for things like data links, airframe modernisation, all of those little updates and modernizations, a lot of which are well overdue. Those are easy targets for people to say, well, that will be an efficiency saving. We'll take a little hit here. Jam will be tomorrow. We can't afford it today.
The long-awaited arrival of the F-35 means that from next year, the Tornado will be retired after more than 30 years in service. As for the rest of Britain's military capability, well, that's still very much up in the air. David Bond for the Financial Times in Marham.
