Rank 42 in the Aviation Heroes collection, this print treats the F-35B Lightning II as the STOVL fifth-generation fighter the Royal Air Force waited decades to field — not as anonymous grey-on-white jet art. No. 617 Squadron reformed in April 2018 at the Smithsonian in Washington DC, trained with US Marine Corps VMFAT-501 at Beaufort, and returned to RAF Marham on 6 June 2018 as the UK's first operational F-35B unit. By January 2019 the Dambusters declared Initial Operating Capability with AMRAAM, ASRAAM, and Paveway IV cleared; Exercise Lightning Dawn at RAF Akrotiri that May marked the type's first overseas RAF deployment. The squadron then proved carrier strike doctrine aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2020 and on Operation FORTIS in 2021 — SHADER sorties, Mediterranean transits, and the contested Pacific passage that announced UK fifth-gen reach. Here the B-variant sits in clean technical profile: external missiles on pylons, RAF roundels on the wings, and the dam-breach crest that still carries APRES MOI LE DELUGE from the 1943 Ruhr raid.