Air power: Iconic jump jet and RAF numbers facing the chop

Ministers said further cuts will mean a requirement for around 31,500 personnel by 2020.

The Nimrod MRA4 reconnaissance aircraft programme will be scrapped and the ageing VC10 and TriStar aircraft will eventually be withdrawn from service.

Tornado fast jets will be retained and will continue to operate in Afghanistan.

The review envisages a "future fast jet force" of Typhoon and Joint Strike Fighter aircraft – although these will be the type capable of take-off and landing from aircraft carriers and will be fewer than originally planned. Typhoons will be upgraded to attack ground targets.

The C-130 Hercules transport fleet, which has been used extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq, will be withdrawn by 2022, 10 years earlier than planned, to be replaced by 22 larger and more capable A400M aircraft, and 14 Airbus A330s, which will also be able to provide air-to-air refuelling. As a result, ageing VC-10 and TriStar aircraft will be withdrawn from 2013.

Officials said the aircraft will enable UK forces to be deployed and supported rapidly anywhere in the world.

The Government also committed itself to buy 12 new Chinook heavy-lift helicopters.

The review says that taken together, all the changes will mean the RAF in 2020 will be able to provide "air defence of the UK and South Atlantic Overseas Territories".

The Harrier will be removed from service in 2011.

The review says: "Retaining the Tornado fleet allows a fast jet contribution to be sustained in Afghanistan and support to concurrent operations which would not have been possible if Harrier was retained instead."

The decision to axe the Harrier brings to an end a distinguished history for the distinctive aircraft.

Dating back to the 1960s, when the first generation of Harriers were built in the UK, the so-called jump jets have become an icon of aviation design for their ability to hover above the ground.

In 1969 the RAF became the first in the world to use the jets' unusual vertical take-off and landing abilities.

The feature enables them to fly in and out of areas near to the

battlefield that conventional aircraft cannot reach and carry out unusual defensive manoeuvres.

Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy said: "Where the Government plans to tackle terrorism and defend our national security we will support them.

"But it is an eccentric decision to have aircraft carriers with no aircraft flying off them for another decade.

"You don't have to be a military strategist to see that doesn't make sense."