And the Spanish Armada Gets Boned Again

According to reports from El Pais, (translation here) the Spanish government is ending its plans to buy the F-35 from the United States.

Instead, it will buy some European fighter aircraft instead, most likely the Eurofighter Typhoon or the in-development Future Combat Air System.

This is a problem for Spain's aircraft carrier, the Juan Carlos, since it is a STOVL carrier, with a ramp in the front and no arresting gear, and as it stands now, it will not be able to maintain its AV-8B Harriers much longer.

In order to accommodate something like the Rafale-M, they would need to add an arrester gear and angled flight deck, which is a significant rebuild.

The purchase of F-35 Lightning II aircraft, the fifth-generation American stealth fighter, for the Spanish Armed Forces has been definitively shelved, according to a report published by the Spanish newspaper El País, citing government sources.

Preliminary contacts that had already begun have been suspended indefinitely. Although the government approved a 10.471 billion Euro plan last April and has committed to spending 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on security and defense, the decision to invest 85% of these funds in Europe is considered incompatible with acquiring an American aircraft.

………

Spain’s defense ministry never moved beyond a non-binding RFI (Request For Information) for the Lightning II. The 2023 budget even penciled in 6.25 billion Euro for “replacement aircraft for the AV-8B and C-15M, phase 2” (in other words, the Navy’s Harriers and the Air Force’s remaining F-18 Hornets). Looks like those plans are now scrapped.

That leaves the Armada (Navy) in a corner. The AV-8Bs are expected to be retired by 2030, and extending their service is no longer realistic: the aircraft are aging, and with both the USMC and Italian Navy phasing theirs out (and replacing them with the F-35B), Spain would be left as the only operator, facing a vanishing spares market. The only viable STOVL replacement is the F-35B. Passing on it would mean the Juan Carlos I loses its fixed-wing fast jet capability and reverts to helicopters only.

Spanish Armada has a problem.

Maybe they could license the Yak 141 from Russia.