Announcing that Boeing is to provide the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) next fleet of air superiority fighters was exactly the sort of moment that President Donald Trump relishes, with his declaration accompanied by bold claims and limited technical detail.
Widely believed to have come down to a dogfight between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) programme had stalled during the closing months of the Biden administration, and USAF officials had provided few hints about its status since. Then, on 21 March, word spread that an announcement was imminent.
Confirming Boeing’s F-47 as the NGAD platform, Trump revealed that an experimental version had already been flying in secret for almost five years.
“We are confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation,” he states, while describing it as the “most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built”, and with “state-of-the-art stealth technologies” that will render it “virtually unseeable”.
“A new fleet of these magnificent planes will be built and in the air during my administration,” he says. While declining to disclose firm details, he adds: “It’s ready to go. We’ve given an order for a lot.”
Despite the secret nature of the programme, he says: “Our allies are calling constantly, and they want to buy them also.” While Washington did not approve international sales of the Lockheed F-22 that the NGAD platform will replace – despite interest from Japan – Trump suggests that it could be willing to sell versions of the new jet to select nations, although “toned-down [by] about 10%”.
What exactly a 10% tone down would mean remains unclear. Rather than lining up to buy the F-47, a number of Washington’s allies in Europe and elsewhere are at the moment expressing a desire to move away from a reliance on the USA as a supplier of military hardware.
Seemingly unperturbed, the USAF is hailing its first sixth-generation fighter as a game changing capability.
“With the F-47, we are not just building another fighter – we are shaping the future of warfare and putting our enemies on notice,” says USAF chief of staff General David Allvin.
Given Lockheed’s years-long struggle with delivering on the hugely complex F-35 programme, it may not come as a surprise to some that the company did not also land the NGAD contract. But now Boeing – which had already made what it describes as “the most significant investment” in the history of its defence unit in building a new fighter production facility in St Louis, Missouri – now has to deliver, and within a very short timeframe.
Only the coming months and years will show whether Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) has learned from the cost and schedule problems that have afflicted multiple of its current major programmes. Several other USAF contracts, including the KC-46A tanker, T-7A jet trainer and VC-25B presidential transport, have been sources of continuing financial and reputational pain for Boeing.
Relishing the challenge, BDS interim chief executive Steve Parker notes: “We are ready to provide the most advanced and innovative NGAD aircraft needed to support the mission.”
But in a phrase that is likely to become a stock response to queries about the effort for potentially the next several years, the company notes: “Further information on the NGAD platform’s technical and programmatic details remain classified under United States national security and export laws.”
Meanwhile, in a busy week for FlightGlobal’s defence team, we are reporting from Australia’s Avalon air show, and visiting the Portuguese air force squadron now operating Embraer’s strong-selling C-390 tactical transport. You can keep up to speed on these and other topics by visiting our dedicated defence landing page.
