This is what the first Polish F-35A Husarz looks like. 32 machines, or maybe 64?
On August 28, the American corporation Lockheed Martin, located in Fort Worth, Texas, hosted a public presentation ceremony for the first F-35A Lightning II multi-role combat aircraft ordered by Poland. This is another element of the Polish military aviation reinforcement program, which was initiated in January 2020.
The date of the aircraft presentation was not accidental – August 28 was Polish Aviation Day. The Polish side was trying to combine both events, the aircraft itself was completed a few days earlier – the fast-paced final assembly line in Fort Worth delivers over a hundred F-35s of various versions per year, and the assembly of the aircraft with the factory designation AZ-01 began in the spring of this year.
Poland is the twelfth country to purchase aircraft of this type – an intergovernmental agreement between the authorities in Warsaw and Washington was concluded on January 31, 2020 in Dęblin. Under it, the Ministry of National Defense purchased 32 F-35A Lightning II aircraft along with a logistics and training package.
Huge contract, no offset
The latter includes training 24 pilots and 90 technical staff in the United States. From 2026, training of others is to be conducted in Poland, including thanks to the construction of an Integrated Training Center comprising eight advanced simulators, and additionally, part of the education will continue to be conducted in the United States, which is related to the lack of appropriate airspace in Poland.
The total value of the contract is USD 4.6 billion and was one of the largest concluded by the Ministry of National Defense in 2020. Of course, the Polish side had already made efforts to familiarize personnel with the new type of aircraft, the opportunity for which was, among others, the allied contingents from the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Italy temporarily stationed at the 22nd Tactical Air Base in Malbork.
The purchase itself can be criticized for only one reason – the lack of offset that could go to domestic defense sector companies. In 2020, the then leadership of the Ministry of Defense indicated that the F-35 program was already closed in terms of production division, however – as shown by the examples of countries that decided to buy the F-35 after Poland, Switzerland, Finland, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Czech Republic – they managed to obtain industrial involvement for their own economy everywhere. Of course, in the case of Poland, the door is not closed.