Boeing Awarded $20bn Contract to Develop America’s Newest Fighter Jet

On 21st March 2025, President Trump announced that the US Air Force’s first sixth-generation fighter jet, designated the F-47, would be developed by Boeing.

Under the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) programme, Boeing has been awarded a contract worth over $20bn by the US government. The contract comes at a time of crisis for the aerospace company, which has been struggling through a series of troubles over the past few years, starting in 2018 when 737 Max aircraft began to crash due to faulty flight control software.

In January of this year, another 737 Max suffered a rapid depressurisation after an emergency exit panel fell off mid-flight. Several whistleblowers from the company had been coming forward, bringing to light low staff morale and corners being cut on the production line, blaming arrogant management. This culminated in the appointment of a new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, who has pledged to “restore trust” in the company.

The contract will revitalise Boeing’s defence division, which it has invested in heavily in recent years. Following the announcement, Boeing’s stock rose by 5%, while rival for the contract Lockheed Martin, saw a 7% drop in share price.

The new F-47’s capabilities are of course highly classified, but prototypes have been in testing since 2020. The NGAD programme faced a setback in 2024 due to concerns over rising costs, with projected price per unit expected to be almost $300 million, 3 times the cost of the F-35 Lightning II, America’s last fighter. Despite this, and probably in no small part due to the rise in global geopolitical tensions and the election of Trump as president, the programme has been given the go-ahead.

Expected capabilities of the new fighter include:

• Next-generation stealth technology to evade detection by radar systems.

• The ability to co-ordinate with unmanned aerial systems - in other words, drones.

• Cost efficiency – USAF officials claim that the F-47 will be cheaper to produce and maintain than previous comparable aircraft.  

In his announcement, President Trump stated the F-47 will be the ‘Most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built’, and that ‘nothing in the world comes even close to it’. These claims are debatable given that many other countries have announced sixth-generation fighter programmes, such as the UK, Japan and Italy’s Global Combat Air Programme to develop the BAE Tempest, a successor to the Eurofighter Typhoon. China and Russia have also claimed to be developing sixth-generation fighters.

It remains to be seen what will become of the F-47, which is projected to come into service in the 2030s, meaning the programme will have to survive the scrutiny of successive presidencies. Often in times of fiscal hardship, cutting-edge military programmes are some of the first to go when cuts come to pass.