Updated: 3:15 p.m.. ET.
Boeing will develop and build a sixth-generation fighter jet for the Air Force, President Donald Trump announced Friday, ending months of deliberation about whether to proceed with the effort and how much it might cost.
“At my direction, the United States Air Force is moving forward with the world’s first sixth- generation fighter jet, number six, six-generation, nothing in the world comes even close to it, and it’ll be known as the F-47,” Trump announced at the White House on Friday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force Chief Gen. David Allvin.
“After a rigorous and thorough competition between some of America’s top aerospace companies, the Air Force is going to be awarding the contract for the Next Generation Air Dominance platform to Boeing,” Trump said.
Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin, its only rival for the NGAD contract after Northrop Grumman dropped out last year.
The announcement delivers a shot in the arm to Boeing, which has been hemorrhaging money and struggling to deliver on key military programs such as the KC-46 tanker, T-7 trainer, and new VC-25 presidential jets. Trump has publicly expressed ire over the company’s late delivery of the new Air Force Ones, and has reportedly considered alternatives in the meantime.
Boeing has been pouring billions into building new facilities over the past few years, placing a big bet on NGAD and other next-generation programs in the hopes of returning its defense arm to profitability.
“In preparation for this mission, we made the most significant investment in the history of our defense business, and we are ready to provide the most advanced and innovative NGAD aircraft needed to support the mission,” Steve Parker, interim CEO of Boeing defense’s unit, said in a statement.
The contract marks the first time Boeing has won a clean-sheet fighter jet design. Its F/A-18 Hornet and F/A-15 Eagle were designed by McDonnell Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997.
It also marks a tough loss for the designer of the Air Force’s F-22 and F-35 fighter jets. Lockheed will be out of sixth-generation fighter programs for the foreseeable future since the company has reportedly been dropped from the Navy’s F/A-XX program. And it comes as Trump’s threats to allies have thrown at least some future F-35 sales into doubt.
The Air Force plans to spend $20 billion over the next five years to develop NGAD, according to its 2025 budget request, and Boeing is poised to receive hundreds of billions over the course of the program’s lifespan.
Viewed as the successor to the F-22 Raptor, the F-47 will be cheaper than the Raptor and produced in greater quantities, Allvin said.
While the specifics of NGAD remain classified, the jet is expected to be highly stealthy with advanced engines, sensors, and weapons. In his statement, Allvin said the F-47 will have “significantly longer range, more advanced stealth, be more sustainable, supportable, and have higher availability than our fifth-generation fighters”—that is, the F-22 and F-35. He also said it would “cost less” than the F-22, be acquired in larger numbers, be “more adaptable to future threats”, and “will take significantly less manpower and infrastructure to deploy.” It is envisioned as the centerpiece of a family of systems, with new drones called Collaborative Combat Aircraft in development to fly alongside the jet.
Allvin said that the NGAD program has been flying experimental aircraft to try out design and technological elements since 2020.
“While our X-planes were flying in the shadows, we were cementing our air dominance—accelerating the technology, refining our operational concepts, and proving that we can field this capability faster than ever before. Because of this, the F-47 will fly during President Trump’s administration,” the statement said.
At the Oval Office ceremony, Trump said that the F-47 “is virtually unseeable” and will fly with “many drones, as many as we want.”
Trump also cracked the door open to an exportable version of the F-47, but whether that will materialize remains to be seen, since Congress could prohibit exports, as it did with the F-22.
“Certain allies we’ll be selling them, perhaps toned-down versions. We like to tone them down about 10 percent which probably makes sense, because someday, maybe they’re not our allies,” Trump said.
The F-47 program will use a government-owned architecture, Allvin said, allowing the Air Force to have more control over the program. Lockheed holds the data rights on the F-35 program, which led to friction with service officials and delays to its simulators.
“The manner in which we put this program together puts more control in the hands of the government, so we can update and adapt at the speed of relevance,” Allvin said.
The NGAD development contract was originally supposed to be awarded in 2024, but the service paused the program after soaring cost projections said each jet would cost as much as three F-35s. Questions were also raised on whether a new manned fighter was a good use of resources in an era of ever-more-capable drones and air defenses. The service launched an internal study to figure out if it had the right design for the planned aircraft.
But in recent weeks, Air Force officials have returned to calls to move ahead. Last week Allvin briefed Trump on the program last week, making the case that the jet is needed for a future fight, despite its cost.
“I’m convinced from the analysis that NGAD is necessary. That’s my opinion, and I have an opinion, and I will offer that to the senior leadership, but I can see the difference that it makes,” Allvin told Defense One this week.
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