China’s two mysterious fighter jets broke cover in late 2024, throwing security mandarins across the world in a tizzy. In response, the Donald Trump administration finally unveiled the Next-Generation Air Dominance air superiority fighter F-47 at the White House on March 21.
As the US strives to maintain its air superiority over China, it has vowed to learn from the mistakes committed in developing the 5th generation F-35 Lightning II, which turned it into a boondoggle weapon program.
The biggest mistake of all time has been that the US government does not own the intellectual property associated with the development of the 5th-generation fighter. This has given the primary contractor control over several aspects of the aircraft’s lifecycle.
Over the years, the US Air Force has discussed the lessons learned from the development of F-35 fighter jets. One major issue has been the “concurrency” approach, where production began even before the design was fully frozen. This led to costly and time-consuming design changes during production.
‘Acquisition Malpractice’ in F-35 Development
Going into production well ahead of its time caused many woes to plague the program. This approach led to expensive and time-consuming retrofits and modifications to already-built aircraft.
Frank Kendal, who was serving as the USAF’s top acquisition official in 2012, called the premature production of the F-35 “acquisition malpractice.”
Kendall, then the Pentagon’s Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, said, “Putting the F-35 into production years before the first test flight was acquisition malpractice. It should not have been done, OK? But we did it.”
Because of the premature production, critical issues with the jets were found after they were delivered to the military.
In 2012, the Pentagon already had nine non-test production jets in its hangars, even as the first-ever F-35 night flight test was completed in May 2012. These planes were subjected to only 20 percent testing at the time.
Can the US Government Operate ‘Kill Switch’ In F-35
While the allies worry about the US government flipping the so-called “kill switch” in the F-35 to make the aircraft dysfunctional during the conflict, the fact remains that the government doesn’t have rights over the fighter jet’s technical data.
As Kendal became the Secretary of the USAF, he mentioned the “perpetual monopoly” given to the contractor as another mistake in the development of the 5th-generation fighter jet, touted as one of the most expensive weapon development programs in the world.
A “perpetual monopoly” gives the contractor control over the entire lifecycle of the program.
The biggest lesson from the program is that the Pentagon did not include the transfer of intellectual property from Lockheed Martin when the development contract was drawn up in 2001. This limited competition and innovation over time.
The decision not to acquire data at the program’s inception stemmed from the concept of Total System Performance Responsibility, which entailed giving the contractors the responsibility to maintain the equipment. The program’s critics contend that this has dissuaded the contractors from designing simple and easy-to-maintain weapons, as their business model revolves around the sustainment contracts for their products.
“We’re not going to do that with NGAD. We’re gonna make sure that the government has ownership of the intellectual property it needs. We’re gonna make sure we’re also making sure we have modular designs with open systems so that going forward, we can bring new suppliers in … and we’ll have a much tighter degree of government control over that program than we’ve had,” Kendal has said.
The USAF cannot obtain the technical data of the F-35 for maintenance as the government does not have the data rights of the fighter jet. This technical data cannot be given to other businesses, leaving only Lockheed Martin to bid for the very expensive sustainment contracts of the aircraft.
In 2021, Lockheed Martin bagged a USD 6.66 billion contract to support the F-35 fleet until 2023. The contract has been in limbo since the US government backed out of the negotiations in 2024. The current arrangement is to procure options for the air vehicle’s supply contract annually to sustain the airplane.
Because of these reasons, even though the F-22 stealth fighter has a higher price per unit, the F-35 is one of the Pentagon’s biggest-ever acquisition programs at an estimated USD 379.4 billion for over 2,400 jets. In the next five decades, the Pentagon will spend up to US$1 trillion in operating costs for the planes.
F-47- The Centerpiece of the Next Generation Air Defense System
In terms of technology and combat capability, the Boeing F-47 will be far superior to Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II. The aircraft will eventually replace the Raptors. The Trump administration also took the opportunity to debunk China’s claim of developing the first crewed 6th generation fighter in history. It was asserted that the F-47 has already made many unrevealed flights since 2020.
The F-47 will join the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider bomber to form the sixth-generation fighter fleet. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said, “The aircraft will have sensor fusion, long-range strike capabilities, and next-generation stealth to counter the most sophisticated adversaries in contested environments.”
The USD 20 billion contract award funds the engineering and manufacturing development phase, which includes maturing, integrating, and testing all aspects of the F-47. This phase will produce a small number of test aircraft for evaluation. The contract also includes competitively priced options for low-rate initial production.
Lockheed Martin’s loss of the deal to Boeing also marks the end of the aircraft maker’s relative monopoly in the stealth fighter manufacturing business.
The F-47, as part of the NGAD, will work in tandem with a new generation of drones known as “collaborative combat aircraft” (CCA). The robotic wingmen were not included in the tender that went out for the NGAD.
One of the major criteria for CCA is to be price effective. So, the manned fighter jet will not have to carry every system. As per the vision outlined by the former USAF Secretary Kendal: “Right now, a fighter might carry a targeting pod, it might carry weapons under its wings, it might carry a self-protection jammer. And those systems are integrated into a single platform … Once we introduce CCAs, we can start talking about effectively taking some of those things off of that fighter and putting them on a CCA — but not all of them.”
The Pentagon would want to be tight on budget after the cost overruns in F-35 development. According to original estimates, the 6th-generation fighter was predicted to cost around US$300 million apiece, but Kendall said in 2024 that they would like to keep the price similar to the F-35 Lightning II—about US$100 million, depending on the variant.
Allvin said in a statement that the F-47’s price tag will be lower than an F-22 — which has a unit cost of around US$143 million. The Air Force requested US$2.7 billion for the platform in its budget request for fiscal 2025, indicating that it planned to spend US$19.6 billion on the aircraft over the next five years.
