Unveiling the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) air superiority fighter at the White House on March 21, an aircraft shrouded in secrecy for years, President Trump said, “It’s something the likes of which nobody has ever seen before.”
Present in the Oval Office were Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, and Lt. Gen. Dale White, the Air Force’s military deputy for acquisition, technology, and logistics.
“In terms of all the attributes of a fighter jet, there’s never been anything even close to it, from speed to maneuverability to what it can have as payload. And this has been in the works for a long period of time. America’s enemies will never see it coming,” Trump added.
The newly christened Boeing F-47 will be a clear-cut above the Lockheed F-22 and F-35 in technology and combat capability. It will eventually replace the F-22 Raptor. Despite what China claims, Americans have said the F-47 is truly the world’s first crewed sixth-generation fighter. It has made many unannounced flights since 2020.
The F-47 will reportedly join the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider bomber in the US Air Force’s (USAF) sixth-gen fleet. “The aircraft will have next-generation stealth, sensor fusion, and long-range strike capabilities to counter the most sophisticated adversaries in contested environments,” General Allvin said.
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What Are 6th-Gen Aircraft?
Sixth-generation aircraft will have all the features of a fifth-generation aircraft with enhanced capabilities. They are meant to have broad-spectrum stealth, which refers to the ability to minimize radar detectability across a wide range of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum.
This is required for deep-penetration missions in heavily defended battlespace. The US has already demonstrated this in its stealth bombers.
They will have advanced sensors that extensively leverage artificial intelligence and data fusion, giving them the ability to operate as “flying command posts.” Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a critical component of sixth-generation platforms. Integrating AI with advanced avionics will help outpace rivals in battlefield automation, further blurring the line between human and machine decision-making.
Some of the other features of sixth-generation aircraft include optionally manned sensor fusion and advanced data handling capabilities, including 6G communications speed, advanced power plants, greater electric power generation, and Directed Energy Weapons (DEW). DEW can be used for anti-space operations and can disable enemy drones, incoming missiles, and even aircraft at a distance without firing traditional munitions.
Augmented reality cockpit—a control scheme featuring little-to-no physical controls, instead displaying features virtually on the heads-up display via the pilot’s helmet. This would reduce aircraft weight, improve upgradability through a software-based approach, and provide additional display space for information outside of the typical flat-screen arrangement. This also includes examinations of interactivity, such as motion control and eye-tracking.
Biometric and psycho-analytical monitoring – exploring pilot health monitoring during combat and training to identify issues such as stress, confusion, cognitive load, as well as hypoxia or G-LOC. Artificial intelligence (AI) will act as the Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) that could assist with aircraft operations or data processing in certain operations or situations.
Vast amounts of data will be processed in real-time, supporting enhanced situational awareness and autonomous decision-making. Aircraft will communicate and control drones and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), including drone swarms, giving them a decisive advantage in contested environments.
They will have enhanced electronic warfare capabilities, simultaneously handling many threats. It will be an aerial platform with stealth superiority and networked combat for future air dominance.
Contract Award
The final competition for NGAD was between Lockheed Martin and Boeing after Northrop Grumman announced in 2023 that it would not compete as a prime contractor for the program.
The USAF said in a release that the contract awarded to Boeing funds the engineering and manufacturing development phase, which includes maturing, integrating, and testing all aspects of the NGAD platform. This phase will produce a small number of test aircraft for evaluation. The contract also includes competitively priced options for low-rate initial production, an approach similar to that taken with the B-21 bomber.
It is one of the most significant investments in the history of Boeing’s defense business, company officials said. Boeing said that the F-47 will build on “Boeing’s fighter legacy,” which includes the P-51 Mustang, F-4 Phantom, F-15 Eagle, F/A-18 Hornet, and EA-18 Growler. “We recognize the importance of designing, building a sixth-generation fighter capability for the USAF,” Steve Parker, the interim president and chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in a release.
Now Boeing joins the other two major American military prime aerospace contractors (Lockheed with F-35 and F-22, and Northrop with B-21) for fifth and sixth-generation stealth penetrating aircraft. Boeing has struggled in recent years on both civilian and military aircraft.
No new military aircraft contracts and 737 Max airliner crashes and worker strikes. They now have a lot to celebrate. Boeing’s stock price closed 7 percent higher than the previous day’s close, and Lockheed Martin’s stock price closed 5.7 percent lower than the previous day’s close after the announcement.
Boeing’s competitor, Lockheed Martin, said it was “disappointed with this outcome” and “we will await further discussions with the USAF.” Lockheed Martin has had some huge production runs with the F-16 and F-35 fighter programs. It has been advancing the capabilities of the F-22 to maintain its combat capability as the NGAD is developed.
The F-47 Design Features
Allvin said in a statement that the F-47 would be “the most advanced, lethal, and adaptable fighter ever developed.”
While the program details will take some time to reveal, the initial images show a conventionally stealthy nose and bubble canopy with a chiseled chine and a flattened overall fuselage shape. They also reveal both canards and wings with a distinctive upward angle, features that aren’t typical of previous stealth designs.
The F-47 is designed with a “built to adapt” mindset through digital design and an open-systems architecture that will allow frequent changeouts of software, sensors, and other mission gear.
The F-47 represents a significant advancement over the F-22 and has a modular design that will allow it to be “a dominant platform for decades to come.
“While the F-22 is currently the finest air superiority fighter in the world, and its modernization will make it even better, but the F-47 is a generational leap forward. The maturity of the aircraft at this phase in the program confirms its readiness to dominate the future fight,” Allvin said.
The F-47 is expected to have advanced adaptive engines, dubbed NGAP or next-generation adaptive propulsion, that shift to the best configuration for any given situation for the best thrust and efficiency. The General Electric XA102 and Pratt & Whitney XA103 will compete for the propulsion system.
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Flight Test Campaign
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) helped conduct the early experimentation to refine NGAD, the USAF said.
Allvin said the US X-planes have been testing NGAD technologies for the last five years (since 2020), “flying hundreds of hours, testing cutting-edge concepts, and proving that we can push the edge of technology with confidence.” Some X-plane prototypes flew even earlier than that, in the mid-2010s.
All X-plane programs were flown in 2020, and by 2023, three separate prototypes had been flown. The formal solicitation was announced in May 2023, with the goal of source selection in 2024. The flying campaign has been accelerating the technology refining operational concepts, with an aim to field capabilities faster than ever before. The target is to induct the aircraft during President Trump’s tenure, which lasts until January 2029, less than four years from now.
F-47 Operational Capability
The aircraft will have “state-of-the-art stealth technologies making it virtually “invisible” and will fly alongside multiple autonomous drone wingmen, known as collaborative combat aircraft (CCA). “We are not just building another fighter; we are shaping the future of warfare and putting our enemies on notice,” Allvin said.
The F-47 will be the heart of the NGAD concept’s “family of systems,” which also includes the CCA and cutting-edge sensors, weaponry, and other technology that will allow it to better connect with satellites and other aircraft. USAF officials have consistently said NGAD will be necessary to counter an advanced adversary, such as China.
The F-47 will have a “significantly longer range” than the F-22, which has a range of around 3,000 kilometers with two external wing fuel tanks, without aerial refueling. USAF is looking at the possibility of two NGAD variants, a larger one with a greater range for Pacific theatre and a smaller aircraft with a shorter range for European theatre. “With the F-47, we will strengthen our global position, keeping our enemies off-balance and at bay,” Allwin said. “And when they look up, they will see nothing and certain defeat that awaits those who dare to challenge us.”
General Atomics and Anduril are building their own CCA candidates, the RFQ-42A and RFQ-44A, respectively, to be the first iteration of drone wingmen flying alongside the F-35 or F-47. The USAF wants CCAs to be relatively cheap, piloted with autonomous software, and able to conduct recon, strike missions, electronic warfare, and decoy missions.
Aircraft Cost & Sustainability
Allvin has promised that the F-47 “will cost less and be more adaptable to future threats, and we will have more of the F-47s in our inventory.” The base F-22 (without development cost) was about $140 million. Including other elements, the average F-22 cost went up to a phenomenal $350 million, forcing program containment.
F-47 costs have not been revealed yet. The price of NGAD has presented a major vulnerability to the program. In the FY2023 budget request, the USAF allocated a total of $1.66 billion for the NGAD program. Further financial commitments are projected, with an estimated additional expenditure of $11.7 billion earmarked for the years spanning from FY2024 to FY2027. In 2023, the USAF projected approximately 200 manned NGAD fighters, although this is a notional figure for rough planning assumptions.
Biden administration had paused the program in May 2024 after cost estimates came in around triple that of the F-35, or as much as $300 million per tail. The USAF currently expects to spend $20 billion on NGAD between 2025 and 2029.
The fighter will require significantly less manpower and infrastructure to deploy, with reduced dependence on ground equipment and more maintenance-friendly components. Allvin said the F-47 will also be “more sustainable, supportable, and have higher availability than our fifth-generation fighters.” This will be because it will require lower stealth maintenance and other repair time and costs. Similarly, the sixth-gen B-21 has been described by the company as a “daily flyer.”
GCAP Program
Will the USAF selection impact the multination Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) initiative led by the United Kingdom, Japan, and Italy to jointly develop a sixth-generation stealth fighter?
The program aims to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Italian Air Force and the Mitsubishi F-2 in service with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.
On 9 December 2022, the governments of Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy jointly announced that they would develop and deploy a common fighter jet, merging their previously separate sixth-generation projects: the United Kingdom-led BAE Systems Tempest developed with Italy and the Japanese Mitsubishi F-X. This was cemented with a treaty signed in December 2023 in Japan.
On 11 August 2023, the Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia was pushing to join the program. While the UK and Italy were reportedly open to the concept, Japan was firmly opposed.
It was primarily due to questionable technical contributions that the Kingdom could feasibly provide to the program. At the 2024 G20 Summit in Brazil, leaders from Italy, the UK, and Japan advanced discussions on GCAP, including Saudi Arabia’s potential participation.
In December 2023, a Swedish official announced during the International Fighter Conference that Sweden would not decide on a future fighter to replace the Gripen until 2031, following several national studies and related planning efforts.
Whilst such a decision does not rule out future Swedish participation in GCAP, delaying membership in the program would risk losing industrial influence over design requirements. Could Germany leave the FCAS program and join the GCAP was also reportedly being contemplated.
Under the current timeline, the program expects to begin the formal development phase from 2025, with a demonstrator aircraft to fly in 2027, and production aircraft to begin entering service from 2035.
FCAS Program
The Future Combat Air System (FCAS), is a European combat system of systems under development by Dassault Aviation, Airbus and Indra Sistemas. The FCAS will consist of a Next-Generation Weapon System (NGWS) as well as other air assets in the future operational battlespace.
The NGWS’s components will be remote carrier vehicles (swarming drones) as well as a New Generation Fighter (NGF), a planned sixth-generation jet fighter that will possibly supersede France’s Rafale and Germany’s and Spain’s Typhoons.
In December 2019, Safran and MTU Aero Engines agreed to establish a 50/50 joint venture to manage the development, production, and after-sales support activities of the new engine to power the NGF.
The first phase (1A) of the research and development program was approved by the German parliament budget committee on 12 February 2020. It set up the industrial distribution of the first five subprograms. A demonstrator test flight is expected around 2027, and it will enter service around 2040.
To Summarize
The development of the F-47 also comes at a time when the USAF is focused on securing air superiority against emerging threats.
“Despite what our adversaries claim, the F-47 is truly the world’s first crewed sixth-generation fighter, built to dominate the most capable peer adversary and operate in the most perilous threat environments imaginable,” Allvin said.
The NGAD, which originated from DARPA’s Air Dominance Initiative study in 2014, has also been referred to as the Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA) platform supported by uncrewed CCA, or loyal wingman platforms, that takes advantage of manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T). The aircraft’s strong points include digital design (CAD-based engineering) and thermal management of the aircraft signature.
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. Company officials said the contract will be “the most significant investment in the history of our defense business. “
While Boeing lost out to Lockheed during the USAF’s F-16/F-18 face-off, it won the US Navy’s (USN) contract for F-18 Hornets. Will the USN also choose the F-47, which has been designed for operations in the Pacific, or will it continue its FA-XX program?
The contract solidifies the country’s aim to replace the aging F-22 stealth warplane that has been in operation for the past two decades with a cutting-edge aircraft. Trump also left the door open to selling versions of NGAD to allies, though he said those might be “toned-down” versions, “Because someday, maybe they’re not our allies, right?”
As the US could become the first country to deploy 6th-gen combat jets and possibly sell its scaled-down version to allies, will the decision impact the GCAP and FCAS programs?
Can the Europeans go on their own after Trump’s dressing down and asking them to manage their own security, which would require hundreds of billions of dollars?
Will F-47’s much earlier operational timeline siphon early customers, challenging GCAP’s 2035 target and FCAS’s lagging schedule?
The F-47 could disrupt GCAP and FCAS by intensifying competition for funding, talent, and buyers. GCAP’s agility and cohesion position it to counter this threat, while FCAS’s internal challenges may leave it more vulnerable.
One thing is for sure: the sixth-generation race is heating up!
- Air Marshal Anil Chopra (Retired) is an Indian Air Force veteran fighter test pilot and ex-director-general of the Center for Air Power Studies in New Delhi. He has been decorated with gallantry and distinguished service medals while serving in the IAF for 40 years.
- He tweets @Chopsyturvey
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