On January 10 the UK celebrated the new Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning’s official entry into operational service during a ceremony at RAF Marham. The event also provided the opportunity to announce that the latest standard of the Eurofighter Typhoon, armed with new weapons, was also ready to deploy operationally. The UK actually declared Initial Operating Capability-Land (IOC-L) for the F-35B about two weeks before the planned date of December 31. IOC was defined as having nine F-35Bs with trained pilots, weapons, engineering and logistics sufficient to enable them to be deployed on operations from land bases.
UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said, "I won't go into specifics on where they're going to be deployed, but this is a fighting aircraft that is there to be used and to keep Britain safe.” Some reports have suggested that the newly “combat-ready” aircraft would be sent to Akrotiri to participate in Operation Shader, flying missions against Daesh in Iraq and Syria.
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