Boeing will build the U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance program, President Donald Trump announced Friday at the White House.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump announced that Boeing won the contract to build the sixth-generation fighter, named the F-47, for the Air Force. Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin to win the contract award.
“The experimental version of the plane has secretly been flying for almost five years,” Trump said. “And we’re confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation.”
The president suggested that the costs of the program are classified but said allies are interested in purchasing the platform.
“We can’t tell you the price because it would give way to some of the technology and some of the size of the plane,” Trump said.
Gen. David Allvin, the chief of staff of the Air Force, and Lt. Gen. Dale White, who is the military deputy to the Air Force’s acquisition executive, were also in the Oval Office for the announcement.
“The manner in which we put this program together puts more control in the hands of the government so we can update and adapt at the speed of relevance, at the speed of technology, not at the speed of bureaucracy,” Allvin said at the event. “This is more Air Force. This is more options for the president.”
Boeing described “the NGAD platform” as “the central node in the NGAD Family of Systems,” according to a company news release about the contract award.
“We recognize the importance of designing, building and delivering a 6th-generation fighter capability for the United States Air Force,” Steve Parker, who is currently serving as Boeing’s defense, space and security interim president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
“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.”
While none of the officials disclosed a dollar figure for the contract, Reuters reported that the award for the engineering and manufacturing development phase is over $20 billion.
“This announcement underscores America’s unwavering commitment to air superiority,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement about the contract announcement. “Air superiority has long been a cornerstone of our national defense. Securing the skies safeguards our homeland, protects our forces, and deters any who might threaten us.”
“The F-47 will be the most advanced, most lethal, and most adaptable fighter the world has ever seen. It will outpace, outmaneuver, and outmatch any adversary foolish enough to challenge us,” Hegseth added. “We don’t take air superiority for granted. We maintain it by making deliberate investments, relentlessly innovating, and harnessing the unmatched ingenuity of the American people.”
It’s unclear where the Navy is in pursuing its own separate sixth-generation fighter that is also known as NGAD. The general idea for the Navy’s program is to have a manned platform known as F/A-XX work with a family of manned and unmanned systems.
While pursuing its NGAD program over the last few years, the Air Force spoke publicly about its development, but the Navy has said very little about its own NGAD effort. The sea service has kept most details about its NGAD program classified, including the dollar figures spent on research and development efforts in previous budget cycles.
Boeing is currently building the last jets of the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet production line, for which it won a $1.1 billion contract last year.
