Summary and Key Points: The U.S. Air Force selected Boeing’s F-47 as its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, aiming to replace the aging F-22 Raptor.
-The new stealth jet faces challenges including high costs, technical hurdles, and potential development delays.
-Designed for Pacific combat scenarios, especially against China, the F-47 will employ drone wingmen, modular upgrades, and advanced stealth technology.
-With initial deployment expected in the 2030s, its success depends on keeping costs manageable and achieving rapid technological integration.
-The F-47 will become central to the U.S. air warfare ecosystem, supporting F-35s, leveraging loyal wingmen drones, and potentially reshaping future air combat strategy.
The F-47 Has Arrived
In March, the U.S. Air Force revealed it would procure a fighter design from Boeing, designated as the F-47, for its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.
The decision came after a nearly one-year pause in the program, amid concerns over high costs and a possible lack of necessity for the future aircraft.
The F-47 is intended to perform long-range air-to-air combat missions against advanced enemy aircraft—particularly China’s—thereby complementing the Air Force’s growing fleet of short-range multi-role F-35 fighters. Furthermore, it could become the world’s first operational fighter designed from the outset to employ “buddy” drones to accomplish its core missions.
While we currently have only a limited frontal view of what the F-47 looks like, there is considerably more information available on what the Air Force expected NGAD to do.
So, what lies ahead for Boeing’s design, and how will it fit in as a component of the U.S. Air Force?
F-47: Getting Through Development
To enter service, the F-47 must first complete its engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase. Anyone familiar with the F-35 stealth fighter knows a lot can go wrong here, including risks of program cancellation if costs and delays spin out of control. Boeing’s recent performance on less complex military projects—the KC-46 tanker and T-7 trainer—have suffered from such delays and overruns.
Additionally, there’s the issue which deterred Air Force procurement in 2024—high unit costs. Prior statements by officials implied a cost range for the NGAD between $160 million to $300 million per aircraft. There were also questions about the service’s ability to afford the projected $20 billion five-year development cost, an estimate that could prove wildly optimistic, judging by past programs. These questions have not been answered yet, so the Air Force must shake down Congress for additional funding, cut major 2020s-era capabilities, or, say, slow down construction of Sentinel nuclear missile silos, which is already far over-budget.
Even with funding secured, the F-47 will defy history if it remains mostly on-budget and on-schedule. While flying prototypes of the future jet exist, such aircraft do not yet integrate the avionics, combat systems, and next-generation adaptive cycle engines of the final product—these are still being competed. And making things that work on paper also work in physical reality sometimes proves a challenge. Worse, unforeseen delays to concurrently developed subcomponents can hold up the entire program.
A repeat of past fiascos is not preordained. There are occasional on-budget success stories, like Boeing’s P-8 patrol plane, and perhaps new design technologies enabling rapid prototyping could speed up EMD too. Furthermore, the F-47 lacks the F-35’s biggest albatross: the need to develop three separate models for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force. However, it also won’t benefit from the buy-in by multiple services and numerous international partners that the F-35 enjoyed.
Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall also implied that Boeing’s weaker pre-contract position allowed the Pentagon to secure a more favorable deal than it could with Lockheed. This might mean comparatively lower unit costs and/or securing rights to modify the F-47’s future mission software without facing intellectual property complaints.
The F-47 in Service
Should the F-47 complete development with only mild delays, Boeing’s St. Louis factory will begin delivering serial production F-47As to Air Force squadrons in the 2030s. While an initial order of 100-150 is expected, the Air Force informally is eyeing 200-220 F-47s in total—though to adapt an old saying, no plan survives contact with congressional budget committees.
The F-47’s service entry should enable the Air Force to progressively retire its 123 operational F-22A Raptors—high-performance stealth fighters unfortunately lacking in range and modern computer systems, and burdened by expensive and maintenance-intensive stealth technology. By contrast, the Air Force expects more airframe availability and mission hours out of its F-47s, and at lower operating costs.
The F-47 also will supposedly feature modular architecture allowing more rapid and affordable updates with new software and hardware over the coming decades.
While future U.S. defense commitments are hard to predict due to present corrosion of U.S. relations with allies, the F-47 was foremost designed for air superiority in the Pacific, facing China’s rapidly improving military (including an air force with a growing fleet of stealth aircraft). Ordinarily, this consideration is taken in the context of alliances with Japan, South Korea, and Australia, and potentially in defense of Taiwan. Long range was particularly desired, due to China’s ability to deliver missile strikes against the nearest U.S. airbases on Japanese soil using its big arsenal of short-ranged ballistic missiles.
Though some F-47s might get forward-deployed for deterrence, most should be based at a distance from China’s short-range missiles. They should be stationed in places such as Hawaii or Guam exposed to a smaller volume of medium- and long-range weapons.
F-47s would also, ordinarily, contribute to NATO air superiority in Europe. Admittedly, Russia’s air force is falling rapidly behind China’s, and there is less need for long-range platforms in Europe. Nonetheless, a Russia-U.S. war would require every available platform to continuously penetrate and destroy Russia’s extensive air defenses and its long-range bombers and missile weapons—so there would be plenty of tasking for F-47s.
However, the F-47 might see initial combat employment in a ground-attack role in the Middle East, much like the Raptor did. This is not out of necessity, but for operational testing and publicity.
The U.S. may also export F-47s abroad, although these might be models unappealingly described as “toned down” by U.S. President Donald Trump. At risk of compromising technology, export orders are desirable for creating economies of scale, reducing unit, sustainment, and upgrade costs. A congressional ban on exporting F-22s (a plane Japan wanted to purchase) dealt a near-fatal blow to F-22 affordability,.
However, potential F-47 exports face headwinds. The allies most likely to buy such ultra-expensive fighters now view Washington as an unreliable ally, and will thus favor alternative sixth-generation fighter programs. Should relations improve by the 2030s, and should the F-47 complete development satisfactorily and prove compellingly superior to any such alternatives, such reservations might change. But that’s a lot of ifs.
How the F-47 Fits into America’s Air Warfare Ecosystem
Modern fighters aren’t built to fight their counterparts one-on-one, but rather to serve as the tip of a much larger air-warfare “spear.” Among key supporting assets are ground- and satellite-based sensors and communication systems (and those on E-7 Wedgetail AWACS aircraft), fused together via the Air Force’s future Advanced Battle Management System.
The F-47 is designed to leverage various loyal wingmen drones spawned from the Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Like a wizard’s familiar, CCAs carrying extra missiles, radars, communication links and jammers will accompany F-47s into combat and scurry forth at the pilot’s direction, carrying out sometimes risky missions.
While CCAs (which will also pair with F-35s) won’t replicate the F-47’s full spectrum of capabilities, they will allow each F-47 to bring expendable pawns to the air-combat chessboard to manage more numerous enemy threats while minimizing risks to the F-47 itself.
The NGAD was also originally conceived as a long-range escort for the Air Force’s forthcoming B-21 Raider stealth bombers, accompanying them deeper inside hostile airspace to neutralize threatening interceptors.
Despite the F-47’s long range, it will nonetheless greatly benefit from midflight refueling. But it will risk detection when mating with the Air Force’s airliner-based KC-46 tankers. Thus the service also wants a KC-Z stealth tanker to accompany stealth fighters into hostile airspace. Whether the service can cost-efficiently develop and procure the KC-Z remains to be seen.
Of course, F-47s will also serve alongside the Air Force’s burgeoning fleet of F-35 stealth jets, as well as older non-stealth F-15 and F-16 fighters. Compared to F-35s, the F-47 should support higher speeds—reportedl Mach 2—and altitudes (60,000 feet), giving pilots the ability to hedge on kinematic performance for attack and defense, rather than relying entirely on stealth, sensors, and instantaneous turning ability to secure the first shot.
Thus F-47s will replace F-22s as the preferred platform for aggressive Offensive Counter Air missions, escorting F-35s into hostile airspace, hunting high-value bombers and support aircraft deep inside enemy airspace, and countering premium fighters such as China’s J-20, or agile 4.5-generation fighters like Russia’s Su-35. F-47s might also help relay targeting information so that non-stealth fighters could contribute very long-range missile shots to engagements, at less risk to themselves.
Lastly, F-47s might still be assigned surface-attack roles when and where there’s a pressing operational need and insufficient aircraft with the required range and stealthiness. They might also be effective defensive interceptors against enemy bombers and missiles, leveraging their speed, endurance and presumably powerful sensors, though this mission is presently fulfillable by non-stealth fighters.
The Air Force wants F-47s capable of defeating the most dangerous aerial adversaries with the most powerful air forces and extensive ballistic missile arsenals. In scenarios short of that, their capabilities are overkill. Boeing’s future fighter is also intended to help bridge into an era in which uncrewed aircraft gradually take on a broader spectrum of missions—potentially making it the Air Force’s last manned jet fighter.
About the Author: Sebastian Roblin
Sebastien Roblin writes on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com, and War is Boring. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China.
