Donald Trump took oath as President of the United States three months ago, followed by unprecedented budget cuts to stop ‘unnecessary spending’, a crackdown on illegal immigration and the resumption of global tariff wars. Amid his campaign to ‘Make America Great Again’, the Trump administration has awarded Boeing the contract to build a Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, also known as the sixth-generation fighter jet.
Interestingly, the Biden administration paused the award of the contracts for NGAD in July 2024 to rethink the program’s requirements amid cost concerns. Eight months later, the Trump administration chose Boeing to build the sixth-generation fighter. The F-47 (the new 6th-gen fighter) will replace the F-22 Raptor – a fifth-generation air superiority stealth fighter, which has been in service for over 20 years.
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‘F-47: Shaping the future of warfare’
The US Air Force Chief of Staff, General David Allvin, briefed the media about the contract, saying, “The Next Generation Air Dominance Platform (the F-47) contract is a monumental leap forward in securing America’s air superiority for decades to come. This contract reaffirms our commitment to maintaining the United States’ position as the world’s most dominant Air Force.”
Dominate the Skies
Get your first look at what will be the most advanced, lethal, & adaptable fighter ever developed… the U.S. Air Force’s F-47. pic.twitter.com/ca1CeBABb5
— U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) March 21, 2025
“With the F-47, we are not just building another fighter – we are shaping the future of warfare and putting our enemies on notice. This platform will be the most advanced, lethal, and adaptable fighter ever developed – designed to outpace, outmanoeuvre, and outmatch any adversary that dares to challenge our brave Airmen.”
“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,” Gen Allvin said, referring to China’s “6th-generation fighter” – the J-36 – which took social media by a storm when unverified pictures of the aircraft flying over Chengdu went viral in December. Information on the Chinese programme is still under wraps.
Trump called F-47 a “beautiful number”. He is the 47th President of the United States.
‘From Pause To Full Throttle’
The NGAD programme is a “family of systems” to establish air superiority and operate in hostile territory without a threat of attack. NGAD has two components: the fighter programme and the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programme to develop variants of uncrewed, semiautonomous aircraft that could fly as “loyal wingmen” with the NGAD fighter or other fighter aircraft.
In the Financial Year 2025, the Biden administration requested $2.75 billion for the NGAD fighter programme and $557 million for the CCA. According to a 2020 US Congressional Report, the NGAD programme was budgeted at $9 billion from FY2019 to FY2025, and a report from January 2025 projects a rise in budget to $5.72 billion by FY2029.
Cost overruns were reported as the main reason to put a pause on the NGAD Fighter Program, with officials doubting the Air Force’s ability to develop an NGAD fighter along with a CCA, B-21 stealth bomber – a 6th generation stealth aircraft – and the development and procurement of the LGM-35 Sentinel – a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile that will replace the Minuteman III ICBM.
B-21 Raider is the world’s first sixth-generation aircraft to reach the skies
Photo Credit: https://www.northropgrumman.com/
According to a 2025 Congressional report, the Air Force informed Congress that the “Sentinel programme exceeded its initial cost projections, positing at least a 37% increase (from $118 million initial baseline cost to $162 million in 2020 dollars) in the cost per unit.” The US Air Force plans to procure over 600 such missiles over the next few decades.
On the NGAD Fighter Program, the Congress report from 2025 said instead of building a new aircraft, the Air Force may consider a different approach and “disaggregating” major subsystems such as the radar or weapons, and moving those to other platforms such as CCAs. However, US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall ordered a study that supported a manned aircraft and left it to the Trump administration to decide on the programme’s future.
Donald Trump, while announcing the contract, said ‘He can’t disclose the cost details of the programme due to national security reasons, but in 2018, Congress was informed that a single airframe of NGAD would cost $300 million, which is significantly higher than any US aircraft currently in service.
Last year, the Senate Appropriations Committee in its report on the ‘FY2025 Defense Appropriations’ committee recommended “cutting $557.1 million and transferring that amount to the CCA programme. The Committee stated that the NGAD and the CCA are being requested on the same funding line, limiting visibility into the cost and performance of each programme element.
The F-22 Raptor was envisioned in the 80s to replace the F-15 as a more potent air superiority fighter. The aircraft, built by Lockheed Martin, entered service in 2005, with advanced technology, stealth, supercruise and manoeuvrability. Initially, 750 F-22s were planned for procurement, but four years into the service, the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates paused the programme at 187, closing its assembly line. An F-22 airframe costs about $142 million apiece.
The focus then moved to the F-35 Lightning, a multi-role 5th gen fighter used by the US Air Force, Navy and Marines.
F-35 Lightning – a multi-role 5th gen fighter used by the US Air Force, Navy and Marines.
Despite the F-35’s advanced features, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), in its report, said it would take at least $1.7 trillion to purchase, operate and sustain the aircraft in its 66-year life cycle due to high maintenance costs and developmental delays.
‘China Is A Threat Today’
With over 800 military bases globally, 11 aircraft carriers, and the most potent defence technology, the US is a global power that can engage and operate within minutes in any part of the world. Frank Kendall refuses to agree with China being a “threat of the future” and calls it a “threat today”. The Congress report, quoting analysts, states that in a fight with China (most likely in the South China Sea) where islands are separated from the coast by hundreds of kilometres, the “F-22 may be constrained by its 450 nautical mile range and 2,000-pound payload capacity. For greater range, the F-22 relies on U.S. aerial refuelling tankers such as the KC-46 and KC-135, which may be vulnerable to attack.”
F-22 Raptor is an American technological marvel. It is the world’s best air-superiority stealth fighter.
The NGAD Fighter Program was envisioned to counter China as a “threat today” and to counter anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities. In 2016, the US Department of Science Board (DSB) published a report on ‘Air Dominance’ to study “the most effective science, technology, capability and systems for maintaining air dominance beyond the next decade.”
It identified the “rapid emergence of anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) strategies advanced by state actors.”
China, over the past 20 years, has expanded its war-fighting capabilities in the sea with a web of anti-ship, anti-air, and ballistic missiles, aircraft carriers, submarines, fighter jets, etc. A2/AD doesn’t mean “No access to enemy territory”, but increasing the radius of the battlezone, which may be highly contested or under threat, keeping the adversary far away from strategic targets.
With China’s growing dominance in the Indo-Pacific, the US needed a new fighter that could establish air superiority in the region, compensating for the shortfalls in the F-22 Raptor’s capabilities in the present environment.
In a 2016 report on Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan, the need “for a family of integrated and networked ‘stand-off’ (weapons launched from a distance) and ‘stand-in’ (weapons that penetrate adversary territory and strike close to targets) forces. It sought a “Penetrating Counter Air” capability that would “maximize tradeoffs between range, payload, survivability, lethality, affordability, and supportability.”
In 2020, the Air Force acquisition executive, Dr Will Roper, said the Air Force had flown a full-scale flight demonstrator as part of the NGAD programme.
Last week, the US Air Force Chief of Staff Gen Allvin said the F-47 “will fly during the Trump administration” because “For the past five years, the X-planes for this aircraft have been quietly laying the foundation for the F-47 – flying hundreds of hours, testing cutting-edge concepts, and proving that we can push the envelope of technology with confidence. These experimental aircraft have demonstrated the innovations necessary to mature the F-47’s capabilities.”
