One of our new hires just came from the NGAD program and said the Boeing team really brought their A game.  Lock-Mart not so much.

5 minutes ago, Mlodj said:

One of our new hires just came from the NGAD program and said the Boeing team really brought their A game.  Lock-Mart not so much.

What's the high level timeline aim for getting those in real operational duty?

1 hour ago, Mlodj said:

One of our new hires just came from the NGAD program and said the Boeing team really brought their A game.  Lock-Mart not so much.

Which could very well mean Lockheed will win.

Boeing wins contract for NGAD fighter jet, dubbed F-47

 

Trump also left the door open to selling versions of NGAD to allies 

 

What allies are those? Trump has alienated all of them. He has no allies except Russia, China and N. Korea. 

31 minutes ago, BBE said:

Which could very well mean Lockheed will win.

Uh, it's already been awarded to Boeing

8 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Uh, it's already been awarded to Boeing

I was not aware.  

Has any noticed an irony to the designator number?  I'm not saying it's vanity, but if the first one is painted gold then...

2 hours ago, Mlodj said:

One of our new hires just came from the NGAD program and said the Boeing team really brought their A game.  Lock-Mart not so much.

Hopefully Boeing doesn’t drop the ball with their QC like they did for the P-8 and the KC-46A. 
 

It’ll be interesting to see how that they picked the NGAD contractor who the Navy will pick. 
 

Not a big fan of the number. F-47 sounds like something that was fielded in 1958. 

4 hours ago, DrPhilly said:

What's the high level timeline aim for getting those in real operational duty?

The Chief of Staff of the Air Force posted the following official statement today:  "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." That's a rather nebulous statement though, is he referring to a single prototype making one flight sometime before Trump leaves office in 2033?    For reference, here's the timeframe for our three latest CAF aircraft.  

The F-22 was selected for production in 1991 but didn’t achieve Initial Operating Capability (IOC), meaning combat coded jets being delivered to an operational unit, until December of 2005.  For the F-35, Lock-Mart was announced as the winner of the JSF competition in October 2001.  The Marines didn’t declare IOC on the F-35B until July of 2015. The USAF declared IOC on their F-35A’s in August 2016, while the Navy did the same with the F-35C in February 2019.  The B-21 is considered a relatively low risk program, developed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.  The contract for it was awarded in 2015, and the current public timeframe is looking to have it enter operational service in 2027.   

1 hour ago, BBE said:

Has any noticed an irony to the designator number?  I'm not saying it's vanity, but if the first one is painted gold then...

Rumor has it they are planning to name it "The Donald" and paint it orange.  A more charitable interpretation is that 47 was used because the USAF was established in 1947.  Take your choice.

1 hour ago, Bill said:

Hopefully Boeing doesn’t drop the ball with their QC like they did for the P-8 and the KC-46A. 
 

It’ll be interesting to see how that they picked the NGAD contractor who the Navy will pick. 
 

Not a big fan of the number. F-47 sounds like something that was fielded in 1958. 

I heard from several other people today with connections to the NGAD, and they were all highly complimentary of Boeing's efforts on this program.  Sounds like the St Louis "Mac Air" culture flexed some muscles.  As far as the F-47 series number, you're late by a decade.

9 minutes ago, Mlodj said:

The Chief of Staff of the Air Force posted the following official statement today:  "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." That's a rather nebulous statement though, is he referring to a single prototype making one flight sometime before Trump leaves office in 2033?    For reference, here's the timeframe for our three latest CAF aircraft.  

The F-22 was selected for production in 1991 but didn’t achieve Initial Operating Capability (IOC), meaning combat coded jets being delivered to an operational unit, until December of 2005.  For the F-35, Lock-Mart was announced as the winner of the JSF competition in October 2001.  The Marines didn’t declare IOC on the F-35B until July of 2015. The USAF declared IOC on their F-35A’s in August 2016, while the Navy did the same with the F-35C in February 2019.  The B-21 is considered a relatively low risk program, developed by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.  The contract for it was awarded in 2015, and the current public timeframe is looking to have it enter operational service in 2027.   

Rumor has it they are planning to name it "The Donald" and paint it orange.  A more charitable interpretation is that 47 was used because the USAF was established in 1947.  Take your choice.

I heard from several other people today with connections to the NGAD, and they were all highly complimentary of Boeing's efforts on this program.  Sounds like the St Louis "Mac Air" culture flexed some muscles.  As far as the F-47 series number, you're late by a decade.

I'm just having fun with it.  How much do you think the maintenance restrictions on the 35 played into the decision?

Standard joke about Lockheed Martin is that their corporate motto seems to be "Oh, you wanted it to work?  That will cost you extra."  The Lock-Mart habit of making so many things proprietary does not win them any fans in the military.

5 minutes ago, Mlodj said:

Standard joke about Lockheed Martin is that their corporate motto seems to be "Oh, you wanted it to work?  That will cost you extra."  The Lock-Mart habit of making so many things proprietary does not win them any fans in the military.

I'm acutely aware.  Especially Alice...(you know it's misspelled).

Not a fan of Tyler Rogoway, but this is a pretty good article on the NGAD.  LINK. I would point out, they have been updating the article through the day, so not all of it is in the quote below.

Quote

 

In the biggest development for U.S. Air Force tactical air power in more than two decades, Boeing has been announced as the winner of the service’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) ‘fighter’ initiative. As the centerpiece of the NGAD effort, the new crewed sixth-generation stealth combat jet, now designated the F-47, is set to change air combat forever, with the Air Force hoping to begin fielding it in the next decade.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin had been facing off to build the NGAD combat jet, but neither company had formally confirmed it was competing. Northrop Grumman dropped out of the bidding process on its own accord to focus on other opportunities. Just the fact that the fighter component of NGAD is moving forward at all is news as the program has been put on hold for the better part of a year, with concerns over cost and relevance being examined. The Biden administration punted the program to the Trump administration due to this ongoing uncertainty.

The announcement was made personally by U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office today, alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin.

The Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) contract for NGAD is expected to be worth approximately $20 billion, although, across the life of the program, the company is in line to receive hundreds of billions of dollars in orders. Each copy of the jet, once series production commences, has been estimated in the past to cost upwards of $300 million. That is if the original concept for the aircraft has not changed.

It’s worth recalling that, while the NGAD terminology is frequently used to refer to the crewed combat jet that will be at the center of the effort, the program of the same name is a much broader initiative. As such, it includes the development of Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drones with high degrees of autonomy, as well as new jet engines, weapons, electronic warfare suites, sensors, networking ecosystems, battle management capabilities, and more.

The NGAD combat jet program evolved from plans for what was originally referred to as a Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA) platform, which emerged publicly in the mid-2010s. The PCA concept was an outgrowth of previous work the Air Force had done in cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). That includes the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, which was publicly announced in 2015 and produced at least one classified flying demonstrator design.

In contrast to previous fighter competitions, NGAD has been cloaked in secrecy from the outset. Indeed, for a long time, the Air Force didn’t even disclose which companies were in the running for NGAD.

However, the likely candidates were always going to be Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman — the established heavyweights in terms of U.S. combat aircraft manufacturers. As noted, Northrop Grumman removed itself from the running for NGAD in July 2023, as you can read about here. The firm is also highly focused on fulfilling the high-stakes B-21 Raider contract. The three defense contractors are understood to have flown up to three NGAD demonstrators — possibly one from each company, although this, too, is unconfirmed. The fact that a full-scale flight demonstrator for NGAD had flown at all was first revealed back in September 2020.

It’s also worth noting Lockheed Martin was reportedly recently droppedfrom the separate competition to build the U.S. Navy’s  F/A-XX next-generation carrier-based stealth fighter, which is part of the service’s own (and somewhat confusingly named) NGAD effort.

In contrast, Boeing has recently suffered some notable setbacks in both its commercial and defense businesses. Trump had previously slammed the company over its contract to build two new Air Force One planes, which are running behind schedule. In the context of NGAD, however, the company’s entire future as a fighter-builder could be at stake. Notably, the company announced back in 2023 that it was going to shutter the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet line and indicated it would refocus in part on advanced combat jet efforts. The firm has made significant investments in its St. Louis, Missouri, facility to prepare it for sixth-generation fighter production. Boeing — alongside Northrop Grumman — is still in the running for the Navy’s F/A-XX. As for tactical jet production, Boeing is currently building F-15 Advanced Eagles and the Air Force’s T-7 jet trainer and will be for foreseeable future.

Lockheed Martin is already highly active in the fighter business, with its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in production for three U.S. services and multiple foreign countries and with manufacturing of the latest Block 70/72 versions of the F-16 also ongoing. It also continues to sustain the F-22 Raptor. Its Skunk Works advanced projects division is famous for pushing the technological envelope, especially when it comes to tactical airpower-related programs.

Trump’s Air Force NGAD announcement comes at a time at which the president has been seeking to cut costs throughout the U.S. government, including slashing tens of billions of dollars from existing defense programs. NGAD has been a significant source of uncertainty over the past year, having been put on pause in May 2024 as the service reviewed its requirements amid concerns about the affordability of the aircraft, capability needs, and shifting priorities.

Ultimately, it seems the service’s need for a sixth-generation fighter in a potential Indo-Pacific conflict secured the future of the program.  

Envisioned ostensibly as a successor to the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, the NGAD combat jet was always intended to provide airpower capabilities sufficient to counter near-peer adversaries such as China and Russia. Although the fighter remains highly classified, it’s widely assumed to be tailored to counter future high-end fights in the Indo-Pacific theater, in particular.

"We tried a whole bunch of different options, and there was no more viable option than NGAD to achieve air superiority in this highly contested environment,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel, director of Force Design, Integration, and Wargaming within the office of the deputy chief of staff for Air Force Futures, said earlier this month.  As such, the fighter will emphasize significant range and payload capabilities but will also boast a host of exotic features and subsystems, among them, broadband stealth, advanced electronic, and other ‘spectral’ warfare capabilities. 

TWZ has previously looked in detail at what kind of performance the aircraft might have in the end.  Once again, the NGAD combat jet is intended to work within a broader air combat ‘ecosystem’ — one in which CCA drones will play a critical part. The NGAD aircraft has always been envisioned as serving, in part, as a forward drone controller and otherwise operating closely together with companion drones. Reflecting the combat role of the CCAs, the Air Force recently announced new ‘fighter drone’ designations for the designs that General Atomics and Anduril are currently developing in the first phase, or Increment 1, of the CCA program. Boeing now joins these two companies as they set about completing the development of a new family of air combat systems for the Air Force.

While there are still many questions to be answered about the NGAD aircraft, today’s historic announcement means we do now know, at least, that the Air Force’s sixth-generation stealth combat jet will be a Boeing product.  

Stay tuned for full analysis and updates that we will post below. 

UPDATE: 12:18 PM EDT—

The only image we have of the newly minted F-47 design shows the design from a head-on perspective. While limited in what it shows, some major features are clearly visible. Most notable are the wings.  We see a wing with a very high dihedral and downward swept tips. This immediately is reminiscent of Boeing’s famed YF-118G Bird Of Prey technology demonstrator that flew clandestinely out of Area 51 in the 1990s. Another loosely similar high-dihedral design has come into the picture more recently in the form of Scaled Composites’ Model 401 demonstrators. One positive aspect of this design element is that sensors and communications antennas on the bottom of the aircraft’s fuselage can maintain line-of-sight to targets even when the aircraft is banking at steeper angles.  The YF-118G proved out a number of technologies, including advanced stealth and tailless design, to new breakthroughs in manufacturing and even visual stealth. It was a far lower performing machine compared to what the F-47 is set up to be, but clearly lessons learned from Bird of Prey are very much alive in Boeing’s NGAD design. We will likely be hearing more about this historical linkage in the future.  There appears to be some sort of canard foreplanes visible in the image provided. These structures are usually not optimal for low-observability (stealth), although we have seen them in some artwork related to future NGAD-like concepts, especially from Boeing. Adding them would allow for better maneuverability and stability, especially for an inherently very unstable tailless design. We will have to wait and see if this feature is included in the final product or not. There is always the possibility that features are included in the concept art shown to throw off foreign intelligence.  We also see a very broad, shovel-like nose, which could house a very large radar array and a large bubble canopy. We don’t know if the aircraft will feature one or two crew. We see a single nose wheel, as well. Beyond that, not much can be concluded, including the jet’s inlet configuration, although the fuselage appears notably svelte, at least from this angle.

UPDATE: 1:00 P.M. EDT—

In the Oval Office presser today, Trump said he was "thrilled to announce” the NGAD fighter contract award to Boeing, describing the aircraft as "the world’s first sixth-generation fighter jet.”

The aircraft has received the Mission Design Series designation F-47, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. F-47 was previously used for the World War II-era P-47 Thunderbolt after the designation system was revised in 1947. It may simply be a happy coincidence that Trump is the 47th U.S. president.  Trump noted that the F-47 "has been in the works for a long period of time,” and that the Boeing design was selected "after a rigorous and thorough competition between some of America’s top aerospace companies.”  "It’s something the likes of which nobody has seen before,” Trump continued, as he outlined the F-47 in broad strokes. "In terms of all of the attributes of a fighter jet, there’s never been anything even close to it, from speed to maneuverability, to what it can have to payload … The F-47 will be the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built.”

Trump said he was confident that the F-47 "massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation. There’s no other nation, we know every other plane, I’ve seen every one of them, and it’s not even close. This is the next level.” As well as being "equipped with state-of-the-art stealth technologies,” which will make it "virtually unseeable,” the F-47 has "the most power of any jet of its kind ever made,” Trump claims. "Maneuverability … there’s never been anything like it, despite the power and speed,” he added.  Trump said that the F-47’s "speed is top, over two, which is something that you don’t hear very often.” This would seem to imply a top speed in the region of Mach 2.

According to Trump, an experimental version of the F-47 "has secretly been flying for almost five years.” This is in line with the announcement of September 2020, from Dr. Will Roper, then Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, that a previously undisclosed NGAD demonstrator had begun flight testing. Since then, it’s been reported that at least three NGAD-related demonstrators have flown.

The president also announced an aspiration to have the F-47 enter series production before the end of his term in office, which ends in January 2029.  "They’ve already built much of what has to be built in terms of production, including the sheds,” Trump said, in reference to investments in infrastructure at Boeing’s St. Louis, Missouri, plant.  As for the unit cost of the new fighter, "we can’t tell you the price, because it would give it would give way to some of the technology and some of the size of the plane,” Trump said.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Trump said that U.S. allies "are calling constantly” with a view to obtaining an export version of the NGAD fighter. He said that the United States would be selling them to "certain allies … perhaps toned-down versions. We’d like to tone them down about 10 percent which probably makes sense, because someday, maybe they’re not our allies, right?”

Having the F-47 cleared for export, even in a downgraded version, would be a significant difference from the F-22 stealth fighter, which the NGAD jet was originally schemed to supersede. Despite foreign interest, the F-22 was never approved for sale to other nations, due to the sensitive nature of its technologies. It will be intriguing to see how this issue would be resolved in the even more cutting-edge F-47.

Allvin, in his statement on the F-47, branded the new aircraft "the most advanced, lethal, and adaptable fighter ever developed — designed to outpace, outmaneuver, and outmatch any adversary that dares to challenge our brave airmen.”   Allvin also referred to a flight test campaign related to the NGAD fighter having been carried out over the past five years, noting that more than one X-plane has been involved, flying hundreds of hours.

"These experimental aircraft have demonstrated the innovations necessary to mature the F-47’s capabilities, ensuring that when we committed to building this fighter, we knew we were making the right investment for America,” Allvin said. This test work has apparently resulted in a fighter that is very close to the series-production configuration, which should ensure it flies in this form during Trump’s administration.

The Air Force chief also provided an interesting comparison with the F-22, stating that the F-47 will cost less and be "more adaptable to future threats.” Furthermore, the Air Force will have more F-47s than the current fleet of just over 180 Raptors. Furthermore, the new fighter will have a "significantly longer range, more advanced stealth, be more sustainable, supportable, and have higher availability than our fifth-generation fighters.” It will also take "significantly less manpower and infrastructure to deploy.”

 

 

3 hours ago, Mlodj said:

 

I mean, of course I know that aircraft. Who wouldn’t?
 

 

 

The best airframes and pilots are focused on air to ground. 

21 minutes ago, Bill said:

I mean, of course I know that aircraft. Who wouldn’t?

F-51 pilots?  

On 3/21/2025 at 1:07 PM, DrPhilly said:

What's the high level timeline aim for getting those in real operational duty?

Just thought I would add that the F-117 only took 28 months to go from selection to IOC.  Three things drove that speed;  Reagan era defense money, being a "black" program, and development of the aircraft before the introduction of the Goldwater-Nichols Act.  The unintended consequences of the last is that layers of bureaucracy and approval authority were added to the acquisition process.

1 hour ago, Mlodj said:

Just thought I would add that the F-117 only took 28 months to go from selection to IOC.  Three things drove that speed;  Reagan era defense money, being a "black" program, and development of the aircraft before the introduction of the Goldwater-Nichols Act.  The unintended consequences of the last is that layers of bureaucracy and approval authority were added to the acquisition process.

A former division officer of mine who is now at DARPA said DARPA played a larger role in development.   That could accelerate the acquisition timeliness assuming there isn't a protest.

16 hours ago, BBE said:

A former division officer of mine who is now at DARPA said DARPA played a larger role in development.   That could accelerate the acquisition timeliness assuming there isn't a protest.

I wouldn't be surprised.  DARPA's mission allows them to dare greatly and fail, while the current acquisitions process is inherently tilted toward mediocre so that nobody has to take credit if a weapon system comes up short.

On 3/21/2025 at 2:26 PM, BBE said:

Has any noticed an irony to the designator number?  I'm not saying it's vanity, but if the first one is painted gold then...

Yeah when I saw F 47 in the thread title I just assumed it was the profanity filter working

1 hour ago, Arthur Jackson said:

Yeah when I saw F 47 in the thread title I just assumed it was the profanity filter working

7 hours ago, Mlodj said:

Just thought I would add that the F-117 only took 28 months to go from selection to IOC.  Three things drove that speed;  Reagan era defense money, being a "black" program, and development of the aircraft before the introduction of the Goldwater-Nichols Act.  The unintended consequences of the last is that layers of bureaucracy and approval authority were added to the acquisition process.

Didn’t the F-117 also use a some other components of existing aircraft to help speed up the process?

1 hour ago, Procus said:

1 week

10 hours ago, Bill said:

Didn’t the F-117 also use a some other components of existing aircraft to help speed up the process?

The Have Blue aircraft used T-38 engines, A-10 landing gear, and parts of the F-16 flight control system.  LINK

On 4/5/2025 at 5:05 PM, Procus said:

 

On 4/5/2025 at 6:59 PM, Arthur Jackson said:

1 week

bro is stalking you. 

Just now, Alpha_TATEr said:

 

bro is stalking you.