{"id":130829,"date":"2025-03-22T01:09:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T01:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/eyeing-china-threat-trump-announces-boeing-wins-contract-for-secretive-future-fighter-jet-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-03-22T01:09:42","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T01:09:42","slug":"eyeing-china-threat-trump-announces-boeing-wins-contract-for-secretive-future-fighter-jet-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/eyeing-china-threat-trump-announces-boeing-wins-contract-for-secretive-future-fighter-jet-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Eyeing China threat, Trump announces Boeing wins contract for secretive future fighter jet – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that Boeing will build the Air Force\u2019s future F-47 fighter jet, which the Pentagon says will have stealth and penetration capabilities that would be essential in a potential conflict with China.
This graphical rendering provided by the U.S. Air Force shows the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform, the F-47. On Friday, March 21, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the Air Force had selected Boeing to produce the next generation fighter jet. (U.S. Air Force via AP)
The Boeing logo is displayed at the company\u2019s factory, Sept. 24, 2024, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson, File)
President Donald Trump announced Friday that Boeing will build the Air Force\u2019s future F-47 fighter jet, which the Pentagon says will have stealth and penetration capabilities that would be essential in a potential conflict with China.
This graphical rendering provided by the U.S. Air Force shows the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform, the F-47. On Friday, March 21, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the Air Force had selected Boeing to produce the next generation fighter jet. (U.S. Air Force via AP)
This graphical rendering provided by the U.S. Air Force shows the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform, the F-47. On Friday, March 21, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the Air Force had selected Boeing to produce the next generation fighter jet. (U.S. Air Force via AP)
The Boeing logo is displayed at the company\u2019s factory, Sept. 24, 2024, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson, File)
The Boeing logo is displayed at the company\u2019s factory, Sept. 24, 2024, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo\/Lindsey Wasson, File)
▶ Follow live updates on President Donald Trump and his administration<\/a><\/span>
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a><\/span> announced Friday that Boeing will build the Air Force\u2019s future fighter jet, which the Pentagon<\/a><\/span> says will have stealth and penetration capabilities that far exceed those of its current fleet and is essential in a potential conflict with China.
Known as Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, the manned jet will serve as quarterback to a fleet of future drone aircraft designed to be able to penetrate the air defenses of China<\/a><\/span> and any other potential foes. The initial contract to proceed with production on a version for the Air Force is worth an estimated $20 billion.
The 47th president, who announced the award at the White House with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force leadership, said with a grin that the new fighter would be named the F-47.
Gen. David Allvin, chief of staff of the Air Force, said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to write the next generation of modern aerial warfare with this.\u201d And Hegseth said the future fleet \u201csends a very clear, direct message to our allies that we\u2019re not going anywhere.\u201d
Critics have questioned the cost and the necessity of the program as the Pentagon is still struggling to fully produce its current most advanced jet, the F-35, which is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.7 trillion over its lifespan. In addition, the Pentagon\u2019s future stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, will have many of the same cutting edge technologies in advanced materials, AI, propulsion and stealth.
More than 1,100 F-35s have already been built for the U.S. and multiple international partners. <\/p>\n

A fleet of about 100 future B-21 stealth bombers<\/a><\/span> at an estimated total cost of at least $130 billion is also planned. The first B-21 aircraft are now in test flights.
With evolving drone and space warfare likely to be the center of any fight with China, Dan Grazier, a military procurement analyst, questions whether \u201canother exquisite manned fighter jet really is the right platform going forward.\u201d Grazier, director of the national security reform program at the Stimson Center, said $20 billion is \u201cjust seed money. The total costs coming down the road will be hundreds of billions of dollars.\u201d
Few details of what the new NGAD fighter would look like have been public, although Trump said early versions have been conducting test flights for the last five years. Renderings by both Lockheed Martin and Boeing have highlighted a flat, tail-less aircraft with a sharp nose.
The selection of Boeing, which has faced intense pressure from Trump over cost overruns and program delays on Air Force One, came after an independent analysis by the Air Force, an official said on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details on the selection. The Boeing offer was still determined to be the \u201cbest overall value to the government,\u201d the official said.
The Air Force has not specified how many aircraft will be produced. In a statement, however, Allvin said there would be more F-47s produced than F-22s, the advanced fighter jet it\u2019s replacing. There are now about 180 F-22 fighter jets in service.
The Air Force later issued a statement saying the number 47 was chosen for a number of reasons: \u201cIt honors the legacy of the P-47, whose contributions to air superiority during World War II remain historic. Additionally, the number pays tribute to the founding year of the Air Force, while also recognizing the 47th President\u2019s pivotal support for the development of the world\u2019s first sixth-generation fighter.\u201d
A separate Navy contract for its version of the NGAD fighter is still under competition between Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
Last year, the Biden administration\u2019s Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, ordered a pause on the NGAD program to review if the aircraft was still needed or if the program, which was first designed in 2018, needed to be modified to reflect the past few years of warfighting advances.
That review by think tanks and academia examined what conflict with China would look like with NGAD and then without it \u2014 and determined that NGAD was still needed. Kendall then left the decision on which firm would build the fighter jet to the incoming Trump administration, a defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide details on the decision-making.
NGAD will bring \u201can entirely different level of low observability,\u201d the official said. It will also have a much longer range than the F-35 or other current fighter jets, so it will require less refueling. A future unmanned version of NGAD also is planned as the Pentagon improves the AI for the aircraft,<\/a><\/span> the official said. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.President Donald Trump announced Friday that Boeing will build the Air Force\u2019s future F-47 fighter jet, which the Pentagon says will have stealth and penetration capabilities that would be essential in a potential conflict with China.This graphical rendering provided by the U.S. Air Force shows the Next Generation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}