It was reformed on 12 April 2013 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as the Operational Evaluation Unit (OEU) for the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning.

17 Squadron formed for the first time on 1 February 1915 at Fort Grange, Gosport as part of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

[3] After an initial training period, the Squadron embarked for Egypt in November and arrived on 11 December.

At first it was the only RFC unit in Macedonia but was later joined by others in April 1918, handing over its fighters to a newly formed No.

For the rest of the war, it was engaged in tactical reconnaissance and artillery spotting on the Bulgarian border.

17 Squadron formed part of the fighter defence of the UK until the outbreak of the Second World War.

17 Squadron was borrowed by the pilot of the Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh, who flew it from London to Paris shortly after his transatlantic flight.

[6] In January 1928, the Squadron converted over to the Gloster Gamecock, these were only kept until September when they were exchanged for Armstrong Whitworth Siskins.

It was in recognition of these aircraft that the Squadron got its badge design, which was officially approved by Edward VIII in October 1936.

[9][10] Once the Phony War was over, fighter sweeps were then flown over the Netherlands, Belgium and French airfields to cover the retreat of allied troops.

In June 1940, the Squadron moved to Brittany as the remnants of BEF and RAF units in France were evacuated, retiring to the Channel Islands for two days before returning to the UK.

The surviving aircraft were flown out and the ground personnel made their way across Burma to the Indian border.

By the end of May, the Squadron had re-assembled at Calcutta and in June received aircraft again for the defence of the area.

[8] Ground attack missions began in February 1943 and continued until August, when the Squadron moved to Ceylon.

Supermarine Spitfire Mk.VIIIs began to arrive in March 1944 and were taken back to the Burma front in November to fly escort and ground attack missions.

However, due to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they were simply taken by the carrier HMS Trumpeter to the landing beaches near Penang in early September, soon after the Japanese capitulation.

17 Squadron arrived in Japan to form part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force.

During this time the Squadron flew a mixture of aircraft including the Spitfire LF.XVIe and target tugs: Airspeed Oxford T.II; Miles Martinet TT.I; North American Harvard TT.IIb; Bristol Beaufighter TT.X.

This time it operated English Electric Canberra PR.7s, thus carrying out the photo reconnaissance role.

It stood up once more on 1 September 1970 at RAF Brüggen, this time flying the new McDonnell Douglas Phantom FGR.2, in a ground attack role.

Tornado operations, as part of Op GRANBY, began on 17 January 1991 to assert air superiority over Iraq.

The Squadron suffered a loss on 24 January when a Tornado GR.1 (ZA403) was rocked by an explosion forcing the pilot (Fg.

An investigation after the war of the wreckage and flight recorder deduced that one of the 1,000lb bombs dropped had detonated prematurely thus causing extensive damage to the Tornado.

[24] With the Typhoon fully operational, the need for the separate OEU ended and so the Squadron was disbanded on 12 April 2013.

17 TES embarked their three F-35Bs upon HMS Queen Elizabeth on 13 October 2019 as part of Westlant 19, becoming the first British jets to land on the carrier.