RAF Marham from the Royal Navy's "Queen Elizabeth"-class aircraft carriers. The first aircraft are arrived at Marham on 6 June 2018, when a four F-35Bs of No. 617 (Dambusters) Squadron, supported by three Voyagers and an Atlas, made an eight hour flight across the Atlantic from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina. The RAF announced on 5 July 2017 that No. 207 Squadron will be the Operational Conversion Unit for the Lightning II. The squadron is expected to stand up at Marham on 1 July 2019. In 2023 the second front-line squadron, No. 809 Naval Air Squadron, will also form
RAF-977 assembly capacity (only 3000 units a year) at the RAF plant (which still used trolleys, rather than a modern assembly line), its production started at the ErAZ factory in Yerevan, Armenia, 1 May 1966 as ErAZ-762. This was nicknamed "Yeraz" (Armenian for "dream"). By 1973, ErAZ's production reached 6,500 per year; with the innovation of overhead carriage, capacity almost doubled, to 12,000 a year. The 977 was also produced under licence by "Lugansk Avto Remontnyi Zavod" (LARZ). In 1969, an improved ErAZ-762A also appeared. Production of the RAF-977 ceased in 1975, when it was replaced by RAF-2203 Latvia. The 977