Summary and Key Points: The new F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter jet will face significant budgetary pressures, with initial cost estimates around $300 million per aircraft—nearly triple the cost of the F-35.
-To mitigate costs, the U.S. may consider exporting a slightly less-capable version to trusted allies.
-While the jet will be less expensive and more sustainable than the F-22, precise figures remain undisclosed.
-The NGAD program is competing for funding against other expensive modernization projects like the B-21 bomber and DDG(X) frigate, highlighting the fiscal challenge facing the Pentagon amid constrained budgets.
-Allied collaboration may ultimately prove critical to NGAD’s affordability.
How Much Will the F-47 Cost? It Depends…
In an era of flatlining defense budgets and with several other big-ticket modernization projects competing for defense dollars, the Next-Generation Air Dominance project’s costs could prove to be a serious obstacle.
After much waiting, the curtains are off on the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, the U.S. Air Force’s upcoming sixth-generation fighter. Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin for the NGAD award, and the resulting aircraft, the F-47, was announced to great fanfare in the Oval Office late last week. One open question is program costs.
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Allvin alluded to costs in his statement covering the F-47 rollout.
“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,” General Allvin said.
He added that “the F-47 will have significantly longer range, more advanced stealth, be more sustainable, supportable, and have higher availability than our fifth-generation fighters. This platform is designed with a “built to adapt” mindset and will take significantly less manpower and infrastructure to deploy.”
The F-22 Raptor
The F-22 Raptor’s cost — excluding maintenance, the research and development that went into the program, or other reoccurring costs — just for the materials needed for a single aircraft is about $140 million. When factoring in the other aforementioned and additional reoccurring costs, that price tag jumps significantly to approximately $350 million.
The F-22’s high per unit cost is partly attributed to a truncated procurement, curtailed by the end of Cold War hostilities and shrinking defense budgets, which ultimately saw just 186 F-22s built, down from an initial U.S. Air Force projection of more than 400 Raptors.
How many F-47s the U.S. Air Force ultimately procures is a closely guarded secret. However, at the Oval Office meeting that announced the Boeing contract away, President Trump held his cards tight. “We can’t tell you the price, because it would give away some of the technology and some of the size of the plane; the President said, add that [it’s a] good-sized plane.”
Sustainment and Affordability
General Allvin’s allusion to the F-47’s sustainability may be a nod to the jet’s stealth capabilities. In the early days of stealth aviation, radar-absorbent coatings were delicate, hand-painted layers on airframes that were labor and maintenance-intensive. As part of the F-47’s sixth-generation capabilities, its stealth capabilities are anticipated to be significantly more robust and less maintenance-intensive than preceding aircraft.
In 2019, images of crumbling F-22 Raptor stealth coatings turned heads and hinted at how much work is required to keep that stealth fighter optimized for defeating enemy radar.
In an effort to reduce maintenance times as well as costs and up mission capability rates, the F-35 was designed with baked-in stealth capabilities that are less labor intensive than the F-22 Raptor. The Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter will almost assuredly have more advanced and less laborious stealth features as well.
From this year to 2029, the Department of Defense would like to allocate $19.6 billion for research and evaluation as well as testing and development for the Next-Generation Air Dominance program, as well as an additional $8.9 billion for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which will ultimately yield the “loyal wingman” drones that will fly in tandem with the NGAD fighter and augment its capabilities.
NGAD Fighter from Boeing.
Still, the F-47 program cost has been a point of potential vulnerability for the program. In 2024, then Secretary of the U.S. Air Force Frank Kendall decided to pause the Next-Generation Air Dominance program because of ballooning costs — reportedly three times the costs of the F-35 per aircraft, at about $300 million each. Secretary Kendall decided to leave further decisions about the program to the Trump Administration.
One avenue for bringing Next-Generation Air Dominance costs down would be to open up the program to close friends and allies of the United States by allowing the F-47 to be exported.
President Trump indicated that “certain allies” would be interested in the F-47, given its capabilities. He added that the United States “will be selling them,” though potentially in an export configuration.” We like to tone them down about ten percent,” President Trump said, adding that “probably makes sense because someday, maybe they’re not our allies, right?”
Other Costs for F-47
Irrespective of cost diffusion strategies with allies, The U.S. Air Force’s F-47 is just one of several major modernization programs being developed concurrently throughout the Department of Defense. The U.S. Air Force’s upcoming B-21 Raider bomber, the successor to the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, will also be competing for funding dollars. The U.S. Navy, too, has a new frigate on the horizon, the DDG(X), which it hopes will replace the Ticonderoga-class cruisers as well as older Arleigh Burke-class frigates and become the main surface ship for the future fleet.
Another open question is the separate but related Next Generation Air Propulsion program, the initiative to develop engines for NGAD. Both General Electric and Pratt & Whitney have engines in the works, and the Pentagon awarded both firms an additional $3.5 billion each for further prototyping earlier this year.
Balancing these projects in an era of flatlining defense budgets will be no mean feat, and cost-saving measures via slashing projects of secondary importance, getting allies on board with project development, or other strategies could prove difficult.
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.
