First Polish F-35A Assembled in Italy Makes Its Maiden Flight

The first Polish Air Force F-35A assembled outside the United States made its maiden functional check flight on July 22, 2026 from the Final Assembly and Check Out (FACO) facility at Cameri in northern Italy. The aircraft wears the tail number 3517 and is the first jet of the second batch of 16 in Poland's order.

Poland split its 32-aircraft buy between Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth plant in Texas and Cameri, the only F-35 final assembly line in Europe. Pricing and production standards are identical across both sites, and the split gives Warsaw a European sustainment anchor for a fleet it expects to operate for decades.

Cameri turns out roughly 15 aircraft a year and is currently building airframes in the Technology Refresh 2 configuration, to be retrofitted to TR-3 standard later. That sequencing lets the Italian line hand over aircraft faster than Fort Worth, where TR-3 software delays held up deliveries across the program.

The U.S. State Department cleared the $6.5 billion sale in September 2019, and Poland signed for 32 jets the following January under the local name Husarz, after the winged hussars of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Polish pilots have been training at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Arkansas, the U.S. Air Force site used to prepare foreign military sales customers. The first U.S.-built aircraft arrived at Lask Air Base on May 22, 2026, ending a wait of more than six years between contract and first home basing.

GlobalMilitary.net inventory data puts the Polish Air Force at seven F-35As in service for 2026 with 25 still on order. They join 35 F-16C Jastrzab multirole fighters and 18 Soviet-era Su-22 Fitters that the F-35 is meant to replace outright. Poland, which ranks 21st in the global military power ranking, has been the fastest-rearming member of NATO's eastern flank since 2022, adding Apache attack helicopters, K2 and Abrams tanks and HIMARS batteries alongside the fighter buy.

Remaining deliveries are scheduled to run to 2030. Lask remains the primary F-35 base, with Swidwin designated as a second operating location.