Boeing will develop the US Air Force’s highly anticipated sixth-generation stealth fighter, poised to replace the F-22 Raptor and play a leading role in the Air Force’s future fleet.
The sixth-generation combat aircraft is a central component of the Air Force’s secretive and costly Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD), which seeks to fly the future fighter, designated the F-47, alongside autonomous drone wingmen known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).
Though never officially confirmed, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman competed for the $20 billion contract. Northrop Grumman dropped out of the running in 2023, leaving Boeing to battle it out with Lockheed Martin’s dominance of the stealth fighter force.
Boeing’s successful bid
President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Boeing was selected to develop the future combat aircraft, which will be designated the F-47.
The designation is a deviation from typical naming conventions because it was previously used for the World War II-era fighter, the P-47.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said the designation is a nod to the P-47 escort fighter of World War II, as well as the Air Force’s founding year in 1947 and the “pivotal” support of the 47th US President Donald Trump in developing the aircraft.
Winning the $20 billion NGAD contract will serve as a much-needed boost not only to its waning defense unit but also to recoup losses from the KC-46 tanker and new Air Force One aircraft.
Steve Parker, interim president, and chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space, and Security, said the company made “the most significant investment in the history of our defense business” after being tasked with designing, building, and delivering the sixth-generation fighter to the Air Force.
“We are ready to provide the most advanced and innovative NGAD aircraft needed to support the mission,” Parker said in a statement.
The US Air Force’s next-gen stealth plane
The pursuit for America’s next-generation platforms began over a decade ago in the early 2010s.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched a study in 2014 to explore strategies to maintain the US’ edge in air superiority. It found that simply developing sixth-generation combat aircraft wouldn’t be enough to ensure air superiority against US adversaries, instead urging a “family of systems” across multiple domains, including air, space, and cyberspace.
Air superiority is the condition where a nation’s aircraft can fly at minimal risk from other aircraft and surface-to-air missiles. The US’s longtime edge in achieving this is increasingly threatened by the proliferation of air defense missiles and China’s aircraft build-up, including two types of stealth fighters.
Building upon DARPA’s findings, the Air Force launched its own study, Air Superiority 2030, which laid the groundwork for its NGAD program, which envisioned creating a future hybrid fleet of crewed and uncrewed aerial systems.
As one of the Air Force’s most sensitive and highly classified programs, few details were publicly known about the NGAD program.
In September 2020, Will Roper, then-Air Force acquisition chief, officially confirmed that the service had test-flown a prototype of its next-gen fighter. This was the first public acknowledgment of the top-secret program that he said he hoped would garner “greater credibility” on the program’s progress.
By 2023, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman appeared to be in the running to develop the NGAD platform, floating potential designs for it in promotional materials for their future projects — a common practice among US military aircraft manufacturers.
Northrop Grumman — the lead contractor for the B-2 Spirit and B-21 Raider stealth bombers — was also in the running to build the NGAD aircraft but dropped out of consideration as the prime developer in 2023, instead intending to support other bids as a supplier.
Early concept designs
Art renderings of the NGAD fighter show little more than the jet’s sleek exterior and wings, revealing few details about the aircraft’s final design.
But concept designs released by the three competing legacy combat aircraft contractors could give an idea of what the F-47 could look like when it takes to the skies.
In a promotional video released by Boeing Phantom Works in 2023, a brief rendering of a 3D model stealth plane showed assembling mid-flight to showcase the digital design capabilities to streamline the development of innovative aircraft.
The hypothetical stealth aircraft appears to feature a flat, tailless cranked wing design with two engines.
A fighter jet upset
Before Boeing was selected to build the F-47, Lockheed Martin had a monopoly on the Air Force’s combat aircraft production, leading some to believe that it would be the prime contractor of the NGAD platform.
Following the fighter jet upset, Boeing’s share price jumped 3% to $5.28 a share on Friday, adding $4 billion in market value. Meanwhile, Lockheed’s stock dropped about 5.4% to $27.04 a share, an estimated $6 billion loss in market value.
“While disappointed with this outcome, we are confident we delivered a competitive solution,” Lockheed Martin said in a statement.
Boeing has long been a major player in the military aerospace sector, including developing the F-15 and F/A-18 fighter jets and the KC-46 aerial tanker.
However, unlike competitors like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which secured domestic contracts for the F-22 Raptor and B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft respectively, Boeing’s long-term defense production largely relies on foreign acquisition and international defense sales.
Boeing and Lockheed previously faced off to develop the fifth-generation multirole fighter as part of the Pentagon’s Joint Strike Fighter program. Lockheed’s X-35 beat out Boeing’s X-32, entering production as the F-35 Lightning II.
Lockheed’s NGAD design
Lockheed’s hint at its potential NGAD concept proposal was a lot more subtle. In 2023, Lockheed’s Skunk Works division posted a black-and-white aircraft outline on its Instagram to celebrate its 80th anniversary.
Despite the lack of details in the cryptic post, the planform appears to resemble a tactical aircraft design, likely related to the Air Force’s NGAD program.
Lockheed further pointed to its potential future participation in the NGAD by releasing another promotional video later that year, seemingly referring to the Air Force’s pursuit of a hybrid fleet. The video features crewed and uncrewed systems flying in formation, with Lockheed’s F-35 surrounded by futuristic UAVs.
Northrop Grumman withdraws NGAD bid
Northrop Grumman was also competing to be the prime contractor behind the Air Force’s NGAD aircraft. The company hinted at its interest in participating in the NGAD program in a 2021 promotional video that appeared to include a tailless stealth fighter in a hangar with historic and futuristic aircraft.
But Northrop Grumman’s bid to build the NGAD fighter was cut short after it pulled out of consideration in 2023, CEO Kathy Warden announced.
Warden added that the company was “responding to other bidders’ request for proposal as the supplier, that’s particularly in our mission system portfolio.”
Navy’s next-gen fighter up for grabs
Northrop Grumman was selected to build the B-21 Raider, the Air Force’s first sixth-generation stealth bomber, as part of the service’s Long Range Strike Bomber program.
The company unveiled the stealth bomber in late 2022, and the aircraft took its maiden flight in November 2023.
Northrop Grumman is still in the running against Boeing to develop the Navy’s next-generation fighter, the F/A-XX, which aims to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
Steep ambitions, steep price tag
The NGAD’s steep ambitions to revolutionize the US air superiority mission come with an equally steep price tag. In 2018, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the NGAD airframe alone could cost up to $300 million each.
Then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in 2023 that he anticipated the unit cost to be “too expensive to be purchased in large numbers,” revealing the service’s plan to team each NGAD with two CCAs.
From 2022 to 2024, Congress allocated $5.1 billion to develop NGAD-related technologies, which included a “strategic pause” in the program due to high project costs. In 2025, the Biden administration requested $2.75 billion to build an NGAD platform, which could skyrocket to an estimated $5.72 billion by 2029.
‘China is a threat today’
Kendall emphasized the pressing need for the NGAD “family of systems” amid evolving threats by US adversaries, especially after the Pentagon truncated the procurement of F-22 jets from 750 to 187 in 2009.
“NGAD will include attributes such as enhanced lethality and the ability to survive, persist, interoperate, and adapt in the air domain, all within highly contested operational environments,” Kendall said in May 2023. “No one does this better than the US Air Force, but we will lose that edge if we don’t move forward now.”
The urgency is also spurred in part by China’s increasingly sophisticated long-range air defense and electronic warfare systems as China-Taiwan tensions contribute to growing militarization in the Indo-Pacific.
The F-47 is expected to operate closely with two new uncrewed fighters, so-called “loyal wingmen” that are capable of flying missions too dangerous for a pilot in the cockpit.
In a potential war scenario with China, defense analysts argued the F-22’s limited range and payload capacity would be ill-suited for the terrain, consisting of islands spread hundreds of miles apart, leaving the fleet vulnerable to attack during refueling efforts.
“China is not a future threat; China is a threat today,” Kendall said during a 2024 keynote address.
“I am not saying war in the Pacific is imminent or inevitable. It is not,” he added. “But I am saying that the likelihood is increasing and will continue to do so.”
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