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 Reuters cited sources last week as saying that Britain was likely to
announce an order soon for 14 of the advanced jets, marking
Britain's first firm F-35 purchase since it committed to buying 48
planes in 2012.
"We are moving towards that point," Hammond said when asked if he
could confirm the imminent order.
"We will have to place a firm order very soon in order to have the
first squadron ready to start flying training off the 'Queen
Elizabeth' in 2018, which is our current plan," he said in an
interview with Reuters Television during the Munich Security
Conference.
The Queen Elizabeth is one of two British aircraft carriers
currently under construction.
He declined to confirm that the order would be for 14 planes
"because we haven't completed the process, but we will be making an
announcement in due course".
Britain is expected to order the F-35 B vertical takeoff variant of
the Joint Strike Fighter.
It has so far taken delivery of three training jets.
The F-35, considered to be the world's most expensive weapons
program at $396 billion so far, was designed to be the
next-generation fighter jet for the U.S. Air Force, Navy and
Marines.
It is being built by the United States, Britain and seven other
co-development partners — Italy, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark,
Norway and the Netherlands.
British companies such as BAE Systems <BAES.L> and Rolls Royce <RR.L>
build 15 percent of each F-35 aircraft.
Hammond said he was not worried by reports of technical issues that
could delay the F-35's entry into service.
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A U.S. Defense Department report last week warned that software,
maintenance and reliability problems with the stealth fighter could
delay the U.S. Marine Corps' plans to start using its F-35 jets by
mid-2015.
"This is a complex weapons procurement program. There are always
issues in the development of weapons like this, and this particular
report comes in a long and well-established line of highly critical
reports about weapons systems when they are at this stage of their
development," Hammond said.
"The whole point of this internal appraisal is to highlight where
the issues still are that need to be resolved in the program. It
is part of the process and it shouldn't be seen as a negative part
of the process at all," he said.
Britain's Conservative-led government was embarrassed by its
flip-flop two years ago on which variant of the radar-evading
aircraft to buy, a decision which cost the British taxpayer at least
74 million pounds ($123 million).
(Editing by Stephen Brown)
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