Boeing wins contract for Air Force’s NGAD stealth fighter jet — now known as the F-47

U.S. officials announced Friday that Boeing will build the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform, ending a months-long pause to the sixth-generation fighter jet program intended to replace the F-22 Raptor.

Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin for the contract of the platform — which will be designated as the F-47, President Donald Trump announced during a press conference held in the Oval Office. Northrop Grumman was also in the running to develop the NGAD platform until 2023, when the company publicly announced it was exiting the competition.

The Air Force did not share how much Boeing received for the award due to classification of the program. The service is now on a path to field the NGAD platform sometime in the 2030s.

“The F-47 will be the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built,” Trump said. “An experimental version of the plane has secretly been flying for almost five years, and we’re confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation.”

The NGAD contract is a critical win for Boeing and revitalizes its stealth aircraft business. The company has bet billions of dollars in standing up advanced manufacturing facilities at its fighter production hub in St. Louis, Missouri, where the legacy F/A-18 Super Hornet line is expected to end in 2027.

The award also gives Boeing a much-needed boost after its other defense programs — such as the KC-46 Pegasus aerial refueler and new Air Force One jets — have racked up billions in financial losses.

“We recognize the importance of designing, building and delivering a 6th-generation fighter capability for the United States Air Force. 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,” Steve Parker, interim president and CEO at Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in a statement.

The sixth-generation fighter jet is intended to replace the F-22 Raptor and is envisioned as a long-range crewed aircraft equipped with advanced sensors and weapons payloads designed to operate in highly contested environments in the Indo-Pacific.

Lockheed Martin’s loss marks an end to the defense giant’s relative monopoly in the stealth fighter manufacturing business. According to a report from Breaking Defense, the company is no longer vying for the Navy’s sixth-generation fighter jet program known as the F/A-XX because its proposal did not meet the service’s criteria.

The F-47 platform is the centerpiece to the Air Force’s NGAD family of systems concept, which also includes the service’s future loyal wingman drones known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and other advanced command-and-control technologies. The aircraft will be powered by an engine being developed under the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) program — another ongoing competition between GE Aerospace and RTX subsidiary Pratt and Whitney. 

Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin said Friday in a statement that over the last five years, the service has been flying X-planes for the F-47 aircraft to test future concepts and proving out its technology. He noted that the experimental work will allow the NGAD aircraft to fly sometime during Trump’s administration.

“With the F-47, we are not just building another fighter — we are shaping the future of warfare and putting our enemies on notice,” Allvin said. “This platform will be the most advanced, lethal, and adaptable fighter ever developed — designed to outpace, outmaneuver, and outmatch any adversary that dares to challenge our brave Airmen.”

The announcement comes after the Air Force decided to pause the selection process for the NGAD platform last summer to reevaluate the service’s design concept against predicted threat environments, as well as attempt to lower the platform’s cost. The service initially planned to award the NGAD contract before the end of last year, but ultimately decided in December to push the decision to the Trump administration.

During the pause, former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said the service was “taking a hard look” at the platform’s design to ensure the stealth fighter jet would be able to address new and emerging threats. China’s arsenal of advanced weapons and NGAD’s survivability on large airfields were some of the elements considered during the evaluation, he said.

In a statement, Allvin said “the F-47 has unprecedented maturity. While the F-22 is currently the finest air superiority fighter in the world, and its modernization will make it even better, 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.”

Budget constraints also influenced the service’s decision to pause NGAD’s selection process. Original estimates for the sixth-gen aircraft were predicted to be around $300 million per unit, but Kendall said last year his ideal price point would be similar to the F-35 Lightning II — about $100 million, depending on the variant.

Allvin said in a statement that the F-47 will have a lower price tag than an F-22 — which has a unit cost of around $143 million. The Air Force requested $2.7 billion for the platform in its budget request for fiscal 2025, indicating that it planned to spend $19.6 billion on the aircraft over the next five years. 

“Compared to the F-22, 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,” Allvin said. “The F-47 will have significantly longer range, more advanced stealth, be more sustainable, supportable, and have higher availability than our 5th generation fighters.”

Updated March 21, 2025, at 2:35 PM: This story has been updated to include a statement from Steve Parker, interim president and CEO at Boeing Defense, Space and Security.