In March, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced from the Oval Office that Boeing had been awarded the contract to build the sixth-generation fighter, which would be the centerpiece of the United States Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. The aircraft will be designated the F-47, possibly a reference to Trump being the 47th president, but also a nod to the historic lineage of the World War II-era P-47 Thunderbolt.
Current plans call for the United States Air Force to acquire at least 185 F-47s, which will replace the aging Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter on a one-for-one basis beginning in the early 2030s.
Although there has been speculation that the NGAD prototypes had already been flight tested, it is now expected that the first F-47 could make its maiden flight by the end of 2028.
Air Force Chief Offers Key Clues
In his keynote address at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Monday, Air Force Chief of Staff General David W. Allvin told attendees that Boeing has begun production of the first F-47, but it remains unclear whether this is beyond any prototype used to win the NGAD contract.
“It’s the platform that, along with all of the rest of the systems, is going to ensure dominance into the future. We’ve got to go fast,” Allvin said during the AFA conference. “I’ve got to tell you, team, it’s almost 2026. The team is committed to getting the first one flying in 2028.”
Allvin further stressed the urgency, suggesting that time is truly of the essence with the F-47.
“In the few short months since we made the announcement, they are already beginning to manufacture the first article,” Allvin added. “We’re ready to go fast. We have to go fast.”
Part of the rationale may be that China has already begun development on its sixth-generation fighter, which some industry analysts have dubbed the “J-36.” Beijing has released no details about the aircraft, but videos of the plane in test flights have circulated on social media.
In his keynote address, Allvin said that this is a race the U.S. cannot afford to lose to Beijing.
“It’s perfectly natural to say, let’s catch your breath a bit. Let’s sort of take stock of things,” Allvin added. “But in this environment, with the consequences on the other side of it, we have to beware of the familiar. Be cautious about the warm blanket of the comfortable. Because you know what? That may not be good enough. That just may not be good enough because the adversary is not taking a knee. … When the President asks tonight, next week, next year, next decade, ‘Can you still do that?’ We have to be able to say, ‘Hell yes we can.'”
The $20 Billion Prize
The NGAD contract was initially valued at $20 billion, but it is likely to be worth far more over the program’s life. It has already been seen as a significant milestone for Boeing’s defense business, notably as its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet contract with the United States Navy will end after the current block of fighters is completed by 2028.
It is also unclear how much Boeing and its competitors, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, have invested to date, but the program has been ongoing for more than a decade.
NGAD’s origins can be traced to 2014, when the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated the Air Dominance Initiative study, which explored future air superiority needs. The U.S. Air Force had previously scaled back orders for the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor as the U.S. was drawn into the Global War on Terror (GWoT), and pivoted to Lockheed Martin’s multirole Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35 Lightning II.
With the F-47, the Air Force is again focused on an aircraft that will serve in the air superiority role, one currently handled by the F-22 and the older F-15 Eagle. However, Boeing has already introduced the F-15EX Eagle II as a 21st-century modernized version of the venerable Eagle, which it is now producing for the U.S. Air Force and for Foreign Military Sales (FMS).
In the mid-2010s, the Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA) concept, a precursor to the current NGAD program, emerged publicly. In 2019, the U.S. Air Force established a Program Executive Office for Advanced Aviation, and the NGAD program officially began to focus on a portfolio of technologies for future air dominance.
The U.S. Air Force had confirmed in 2020 that it had built and even flown at least one prototype of the NGAD fighter, but it is unclear how that relates to the F-47. The formal competition between the aerospace firms began in earnest in May 2023 when the Pentagon issued a contract solicitation for the program’s Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase.
It was just a few months later that Northrop Grumman officially exited the NGAD program, with CEO Kathy Warden announcing that the company would not respond to the Air Force’s Request for Proposal (RFP) as the prime contractor. The company had been focusing on the development of the B-21 Raider long-range strategic bomber, and remains in the competition for the U.S. Navy’s F/A-XX sixth-generation program to build a replacement for the aforementioned F/A-18 Super Hornet.
There has been speculation for several months that the White House would name the winner of that contract, yet it has not been announced. This past summer, both Boeing and Northrop Grumman released renderings of their respective prototype.
Lockheed Martin, which was eliminated from the F/A-XX program, has since touted building a “Ferrari” version of its F-35 Lightning II, which would incorporate sixth-generation technology and be offered at a lower cost than the F-47.
