The top officer in the US Navy (USN) is affirming her service’s commitment to fielding a carrier-launched sixth-generation combat fighter.
To that end, chief of naval operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti on 2 October said the USN is progressing with its fighter development programme, known as the F/A-XX.
“We have three companies that have provided proposals,” Franchetti says. “We’re actually in source selection right now.”
Officially termed the Next Generation Fighter, F/A-XX is intended to replace the navy’s carrier-based Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighters and EA-18G Growler electronic-attack jets.
Franchetti says the service still hopes to field the new aircraft sometime in the 2030s. She notes the fighter is expected to carry improved sensors and have more range, “advanced lethality” and ability to team with uncrewed aircraft.
The four-star admiral did not reveal which firms are contenders, though likely players include Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Boeing and Lockheed are the only active producers of crewed fighter aircraft in the USA, while Lockheed and Northrop are the only airframers with stealth jets in active production or under development.
Boeing and Lockheed are widely believed to be finalists for the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) sixth-generation fighter programme, known as Next Generation Air Dominance, after Northrop withdrew from that project in 2023.
Franchetti’s pronouncement comes as the navy has delayed committing some $1 billion in research and development funding for F/A-XX, instead prioritising readiness of existing platforms.
US lawmakers are separately considering deep cuts to the navy’s budget for sixth-generation fighter development. The service had sought $453 million for the Next Generation Fighter Programme in fiscal year 2025, but a draft spending bill still under consideration by Congress would slash $400 million off that figure.
That would leave just $53 million for funding the project this fiscal year, less than 12% of the navy’s original request. Lawmakers plan to redirect the $400 million toward purchasing a new cruise missile-armed Virginia-class fast-attack submarine.
If the navy were ultimately to back out of F/A-XX, it would not be the first time the service has reneged on an initial commitment to develop a new stealth fighter. It was originally a key player in developing the Lockheed F-22 and Northrop YF-23 under the Advanced Technical Fighter programme, before later dropping out.
Should proposed cuts to the navy’s latest fighter initiative become official, it could spell trouble for the American fighter industrial base, which is already stressed by softening commitment within the USAF to that service’s sixth-generation development effort.
Air force secretary Frank Kendall in September confirmed he paused the current NGAD programme over concerns about cost.
“We need a unit cost that is affordable in significant quantities,” Kendall said at the annual Air & Space Forces Association conference in September.
He revealed that current NGAD designs, which started life as F-22 replacements, would cost “multiples of an F-35”, referencing the stealthy strike Lockheed fighter the air force is purchasing in large numbers.
The USAF currently buys single-engined F-35As from Lockheed at a rough price of $80 million each. Kendall said that figure represents the upper limit of what his service wants to pay for a crewed fighter.
Instead, the service is focused on developing new low-cost autonomous jets called Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) that can team with existing fifth-generation fighters.
Although Kendall says the air force will likely still field at least one more version of a “crewed traditional aircraft”, uncertainty around NGAD’s future is worrying the country’s aerospace developers.
Boeing is in a particularly tight spot. The company already invested nearly $2 billion to construct a classified factory to assemble advanced combat aircraft – though it has not publicly confirmed whether that project is related to the secretive NGAD programme.
While rivals Lockheed and Northrop have robust orders pipelines for their own advanced jets, including Lockheed’s internationally popular F-35 strike fighter and Northrop’s forthcoming B-21 stealth bomber, Boeing has not secured a contract for a next-generation aircraft.
The company is currently producing the latest F-15EX Eagle II for the USAF, but the service has made repeated downward revisions to its acquisition target for the multi-role fighter. Defence spending legislation under consideration by Congress would add six more jets to the current procurement goal of 98 aircraft.
Although it has several potential international customers showing promise, including Poland, Israel and Indonesia, Boeing has yet to secure firm orders for the Eagle II outside the USA.
