President Donald Trump has touted a new contract with Boeing to produce the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter jet, the F-47. The announcement comes after years of trouble with the F-35, which has been plagued by major technical problems and cost overruns for the last decade.
Trump announced the project for the “Next-Generation Air Dominance” (NGAD) platform during an Oval Office presser on Friday, saying the F-47 would be the Pentagon’s “most lethal” warplane and “something the likes of which nobody has ever seen before.”
“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,” the 47th USpresident said. “America’s enemies will never see it coming.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin and Air Force acquisitions deputy Lt. Gen. Dale White also attended the press conference alongside Trump. Allvin similarly noted that the fighter jet had long been in the works, saying test models had already flown “hundreds of hours.”
He claimed the plane would cost less to produce than Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor, and said the Air Force would eventually possess more NGAD fighters than Raptors. The Air Force fleet currently contains around 185 F-22s, each reportedly costing some $350 million, making the older plane one of the most expensive in the US arsenal, according to the National Interest.
While the Trump administration has declined to reveal the projected cost of the new F-47, the price has been a major sticking point, with former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall even imposing a “strategic pause” on the project last year after it was expected to triple the cost of the Pentagon’s fifth-generation multi-role fighter, the F-35.
Supposedly the US’ most advanced warplane, the F-35 has faced major technological and budgetary problems both before and after it entered service in 2015. Though it was designed to replace older jets, the F-35 has been plagued by a long list of design flaws, and earned itself the title of “the most expensive weapon system in human history” thanks to countless cost overruns throughout its development.
Despite years of upgrades, a Pentagon review published last year found that the “operational suitability” of the plane still remained “below service expectations and requirements,” also reporting “critical failures” in several F-35 components. Nonetheless, the plane was approved for “full-rate production” soon afterward, and around the same time was cleared to carry nuclear weapons.
Boeing later issued its own statement on the F-47 platform, noting that the jet would be a “central node” in a whole new “family of systems.”
“In preparation for this mission, we made the most significant investment in the history of our defense business, and we are ready to provide the most advanced and innovative NGAD aircraft needed to support the mission,” said Steve Parker, the interim president and chief executive officer for Boeing Defense, Space & Security.
Boeing has been awarded billions in tax dollars over the years to develop a number of older US combat aircraft, including the F-4 Phantom, the F-15 Eagle, the F/A-18 Hornet and the EA-18G Growler.
Will Porter is assistant news editor and book editor at the Libertarian Institute, and a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. Find more of his work at Consortium News and ZeroHedge.
