JGalt
Diamond Member
- Mar 9, 2011
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Named after President Trump, of course. I can hear the liberal's heads spinning from here. 
U.S. President Donald Trump, together with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Air Force Chief Gen. David Allvin, announced the award of the contract for the development of the U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance manned fighter to Boeing and its F-47 design. The announcement of the contract follows months of uncertainty due to budget constraints and shifting priorities that led to a pause and a detailed review of the program.
The highly anticipated award comes shortly after reports mentioned the Air Force and Navy have briefed President Trump on their respective NGAD programs at his request. Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin and Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby briefed the President on behalf of the Air Force and Navy, respectively.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin, with their Phantom Works and Skunk Works divisions, were the sole competitors for the engineering and manufacturing development contract, worth at least $20 billion, which would be followed by hundreds of billions of dollars in orders over the contract’s lifetime. The cost of the NGAD fighters is expected to be in the hundreds of millions apiece, with the most accredited estimate being $300 million per aircraft.
Both companies are reported to have finalized their designs in 2024, with the Air Force extending the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction contracts to allow the designs to further progress while waiting for the final decision about the program. The winner chosen with this contract award is likely one of those designs or an evolution of it based on the results of the program’s review.
Actually, the former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall was ready to announce the winner at the end of 2024, however he later opted to leave the decision to the next administration as it “may want some additional analysis” because “it would have to live with the choice.” This suggests that the selection of the winning design might have already been made in 2024, with the service waiting for the green light from the administration before the announcement.
Gen. Allvin recently mentioned that the service needs a “high-end penetrating capability,” implicitly expressing support for the program. As a matter of fact, the manned fighter whitin the NGAD family of systems is also known as the Penetrating Combat Aircraft, as described in the “Air Superiority 2030” study released in 2016.
NGAD is currently the most expensive program in the Air Force’s research and development budget, with the 2025 budget request including $19.6 billion in the next five years. The leaders of the Senate and House Appropriations defense subcommittees, in their plans for 2025 spending, proposed a $325 million cut to NGAD justifying it as a “classified adjustment” which, if followed, would reduce the funding to $2.4 billion in FY25.
In September 2020, Dr. Will Roper, the then Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, made it public that the U.S. Air Force had secretly designed, built and flown at least one full-scale prototype of a new generation fighter aircraft, as part of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.
Breaking: Boeing Awarded Contract to Build U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Fighter Called F-47
Breaking: Boeing F-47 Awarded U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Program Contract
U.S. President Donald Trump personally announced the winner of the U.S. Air Force’s NGAD program competition for the sixth-generation manned fighter.
U.S. President Donald Trump, together with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Air Force Chief Gen. David Allvin, announced the award of the contract for the development of the U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance manned fighter to Boeing and its F-47 design. The announcement of the contract follows months of uncertainty due to budget constraints and shifting priorities that led to a pause and a detailed review of the program.
The highly anticipated award comes shortly after reports mentioned the Air Force and Navy have briefed President Trump on their respective NGAD programs at his request. Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin and Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby briefed the President on behalf of the Air Force and Navy, respectively.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin, with their Phantom Works and Skunk Works divisions, were the sole competitors for the engineering and manufacturing development contract, worth at least $20 billion, which would be followed by hundreds of billions of dollars in orders over the contract’s lifetime. The cost of the NGAD fighters is expected to be in the hundreds of millions apiece, with the most accredited estimate being $300 million per aircraft.
Both companies are reported to have finalized their designs in 2024, with the Air Force extending the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction contracts to allow the designs to further progress while waiting for the final decision about the program. The winner chosen with this contract award is likely one of those designs or an evolution of it based on the results of the program’s review.
Actually, the former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall was ready to announce the winner at the end of 2024, however he later opted to leave the decision to the next administration as it “may want some additional analysis” because “it would have to live with the choice.” This suggests that the selection of the winning design might have already been made in 2024, with the service waiting for the green light from the administration before the announcement.
Gen. Allvin recently mentioned that the service needs a “high-end penetrating capability,” implicitly expressing support for the program. As a matter of fact, the manned fighter whitin the NGAD family of systems is also known as the Penetrating Combat Aircraft, as described in the “Air Superiority 2030” study released in 2016.
NGAD is currently the most expensive program in the Air Force’s research and development budget, with the 2025 budget request including $19.6 billion in the next five years. The leaders of the Senate and House Appropriations defense subcommittees, in their plans for 2025 spending, proposed a $325 million cut to NGAD justifying it as a “classified adjustment” which, if followed, would reduce the funding to $2.4 billion in FY25.
History of NGAD program
In September 2020, Dr. Will Roper, the then Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, made it public that the U.S. Air Force had secretly designed, built and flown at least one full-scale prototype of a new generation fighter aircraft, as part of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.
Breaking: Boeing Awarded Contract to Build U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Fighter Called F-47
