Navantia Unveils 64-Cell F-110 Flight II Frigate in Bid for Europe’s Air-Defence Market

Navantia used DALO Industry Days in Denmark on 27 August 2026 to put a scale model of a substantially rearmed frigate on the table. Designated F-110 Flight II for the Spanish Navy and marketed abroad as the IAMD variant, the ship takes the hull Navantia is already building at Ferrol and rebuilds it around one mission: integrated air and missile defence.

The numbers tell the story. Flight I carries a modest vertical launch fit sized for area air defence in a task group. Flight II carries 64 cells — a 48-cell Mk 41 Strike Length module forward and a further 16 Mk 41 Tactical Length cells inside the superstructure. Quad-packed, that translates to as many as 256 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, or 64 SM-2 rounds, or any mix in between.

What Changed From Flight I

Carrying that magazine required growing the ship. Flight II stretches to roughly 150 metres, five metres longer than the baseline, with a maximum beam of 18.6 metres and a full-load displacement around 6,700 tonnes — some 600 tonnes heavier than Flight I. Crew rises to about 170, with accommodation for a further 37.

Performance moves with it rather than against it. Navantia quotes a maximum speed above 29 knots, three knots faster than Flight I, a cruising speed over 18 knots, and a range of roughly 4,100 nautical miles at 15 knots. That is a deliberate trade: the extra length buys both magazine depth and a finer hull form, and the propulsion plant was sized to exploit it.

Beyond the VLS, the armament fit is conventional for a modern European escort — eight Kongsberg Naval Strike Missiles, a Leonardo OTO 127/64 LW gun forward, and twin Mk 32 Mod 9 torpedo launchers. The point of the design is not surface strike or anti-submarine warfare, both of which the ship retains; it is the depth of the air-defence magazine.

The Radar Is the Real Upgrade

The most consequential change is not visible in the cell count. Flight II carries an enhanced AN/SPY-7(V)2 S-band solid-state radar with 100 sub-array suites per array, against 68 on the baseline installation. That is close to a 50 percent increase in aperture population, and it buys sensitivity, simultaneous track capacity, and — critically for ballistic missile work — the ability to hold small, fast, high-altitude targets at range.

AN/SPY-7 is Lockheed Martin’s scalable descendant of the Long Range Discrimination Radar, and it has become the connective tissue of allied missile defence procurement. Japan selected it for its Aegis System Equipped Vessels, Canada for the River-class destroyer, and Spain for F-110. A common radar across those navies means common software builds, shared discrimination algorithms, and a shorter path to cooperative engagement between allied hulls.

Spain’s Programme and the Export Play

Spain’s plan is now a mixed fleet: five Flight I ships, three of which are already under construction, plus two Flight II vessels. That structure gives the Armada a general-purpose escort force with a dedicated high-end air-defence pair, rather than paying for maximum capability across every hull.

The export ambition is what brought the model to Denmark. Copenhagen is running one of Europe’s most closely watched frigate competitions, driven by a Danish decision to rebuild an air-defence capability that atrophied after the Iver Huitfeldt class entered service with an incomplete weapons fit. Denmark’s requirement — a serious area air-defence ship, ideally with ballistic missile defence growth — maps almost exactly onto what Flight II offers.

Navantia is not alone in noticing. Every major European yard is positioning for the same set of requirements, and the continent’s escort competitions increasingly turn on magazine depth and radar performance rather than hull design. Damen, Babcock, TKMS, Fincantieri and Naval Group are all pitching variants of existing designs stretched around larger VLS fits, which is precisely the manoeuvre Navantia has executed here.

Why Magazine Depth Now Dominates

The shift in emphasis reflects operational experience rather than doctrine. Red Sea operations since 2023 demonstrated that a single escort can expend a significant fraction of its magazine in a matter of days against drones and anti-ship missiles, and that reloading at sea remains an unsolved problem for Western navies. A ship with 32 cells is a different asset from a ship with 64 once the shooting starts and the nearest replenishment port is a week away.

That lesson is now written into procurement across NATO. The alliance’s escort force spent three decades optimised for a permissive maritime environment and modest ammunition expenditure. Flight II, with a magazine that can hold 256 short-range effectors, is an answer to a different set of assumptions.

Timeline and Open Questions

Navantia has shown a model, not steel. Flight II remains a design offering for Spain and a marketing proposition abroad, and the Spanish Navy’s two-ship commitment sits behind the Flight I production run at Ferrol. Cost has not been disclosed, and the combat system integration effort implied by a larger SPY-7 array and a 64-cell magazine is not trivial.

What the unveiling establishes is that Spain intends to compete at the top of the European air-defence escort market rather than cede it, and that the F-110 line has enough growth margin to be stretched into that role. Whether Denmark or any other customer agrees will be settled over the next two years.

Sources

• Naval News, “Navantia Unveils F-110 Flight II / IAMD Frigate,” 27 August 2026 — navalnews.com
• Navantia programme materials presented at DALO Industry Days 2026, Denmark
• Lockheed Martin AN/SPY-7 programme information
• Spanish Navy F-110 Bonifaz-class programme documentation