BRITAIN’S cutting-edge F-35 Lightning stealth fighter jets are expected to touch down on UK soil from as early as next week.

The UK’s supersonic aircraft have been stationed in America since their manufacture, being tested and used for training by Royal Air Force and Royal Navy pilots.

Four of the jets, based at US Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, are due to cross the Atlantic in the first trip, with five following by the beginning of August..

Wing Commander Scott Williams, the UK’s senior representative in Beaufort, said: “There is definitely a feeling that we have arrived very quickly to a point where we are comfortable to take some of our aeroplanes and send them back to the UK so that 617 squadron can declare initial operating capability at the end of the year.”