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.
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 Boeing’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 finally returning its defense arm to profitability.
Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin, its only rival for the NGAD contract after Northrop Grumman dropped out last year.
The loss means 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.
While the specifics of NGAD remain classified, the jet is expected to be highly stealthy with advanced engines, sensors, and weapons. 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.
An experimental version of the plane has “secretly been flying for almost five years,” Trump said, adding that the F-47 will be equipped with “state-of-the-art stealth technology—it is virtually unseeable,” and that the jet will fly with “many drones, as many as we want.”
In a statement, Allvin said the new fighter would arrive by 2028.
“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.
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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