Summary and Key Points: The F-47, America’s sixth-generation stealth fighter under the NGAD program, promises advanced stealth, modular upgrades, and new autonomous capabilities.
-Though the program faced scrutiny due to high costs—around $160-$180 million per aircraft—and a controversial acquisition process, the U.S. Air Force will retain greater control over its intellectual property, potentially accelerating upgrades.
-Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall criticized earlier acquisition methods but supported the program’s strategic value. With paired unmanned drones and compatibility with existing aircraft, the F-47 aims to preserve U.S. air dominance. Export restrictions may limit its availability to allies, echoing lessons from the F-22 Raptor.
-Despite the incredible cost of the Next Generation Air Defense program to create a sixth-generation stealth fighter jet, the Trump administration decided it was worth it. This is perhaps partly because the U.S. will retain rights to the design of the future F-47, potentially expediting future software upgrades and hardware changes.
F-47: The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Program
There is no bigger news in the realm of aerospace than the introduction of the F-47, the U.S. Air Force’s upcoming fighter jet. The jet will in all likelihood be at the bleeding edge of stealthy, networked fighter-jet technology.
By providing the United States its first sixth-generation fighter, and by pairing it with a command-and-control node of new classes of small, attritable unmanned fighters, the program has already achieved several major firsts. Lucky for us, someone intimately familiar with the project gave a curtain-raising interview recently about the F-47.
A Curtain-raiser on the F-47
In a wide-ranging interview, former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and former Air Force acquisition executive Andrew Hunter spoke about the F-47’s development process. The interview covered details about the jet’s design and issues that delayed the program, as well as providing some overall expectations for the F-47.
One of the major takeaways from the discussion was that unlike previous American aerospace programs—the F-35 in particular—the U.S. Air Force itself will retain a great deal of control over the F-47 platform, both in terms of agency, in tweaking the design, and concerning the project’s intellectual property. This could, in theory, expedite software updates and physical upgrades to the aircraft in the future.
“We’re not a prisoner of a prime, basically, for upgrades and for competing for modular components that can be added to replace other components as the life of the aircraft goes on,” Kendall said.
Kendall in the past expressed deep dissatisfaction with the F-35’s acquisition process. Though the Joint Strike Fighter project ultimately yielded a capable aircraft, Kendall bemoaned that jet’s development pipeline.
“I can spend quite a few minutes on the F-35, but I don’t want to,” Kendall previously said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Putting the F-35 into production years before the first test flight was acquisition malpractice. It should not have been done, OK? But we did it.”
“The hardest part of any acquisition program is the transition from development to production,” Kendall said. “And that’s where the concurrency arguments come in. You know, when should you start? And I think there’s been a tendency to start too early in some cases. And the F-35 is probably an extreme example of that.”
A Brief Pause
At the tail end of the Biden administration, Kendall even paused the Next Generation Air Dominance program, pending a feasibility study, and left the decision about its future to the Trump administration. Costs helped drive that decision.
In order to complete the research-and-development phase of the NGAD, Kendall’s office estimated $20 billion would be necessary. “We just couldn’t do it unless we were going to be given more money,” Kendall said. “And there was no place to trade off left within the Air Force to fund it.”
Dropping more money into the NGAD program would have come at the cost of other programs—some of which are highly important to the survivability of the Air Force during the opening salvoes of a potential future fight, including assets in space and to defend bases.
“The Chinese have fielded literally thousands of weapons to attack those bases, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and hypersonics,” Kendall explained. “So having an effective, cost-effective ability to defend them is very important.”
The United States can use Patriot air defense batteries, and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems, to defend the skies. However, battery missiles are very costly, and Kendall saw finding a lower-cost alternative as a priority worth investing in.
The F-47 platform is estimated to cost about $160 million to $180 million per airplane, nearly double the cost of the F-35. The question now is, will it be worth it?
Incrementally Better
Setting aside questions about what trade-offs the Trump administration made to proceed with the F-47’s procurement, Kendall noted that the F-47 will not be a silver bullet that instantly gives the United States robust and persistent air superiority in the next conflict.
Instead, the Air Force will have to lean on the capabilities of not only the F-47 but also the F-22 Raptor, the F-35, and the various unscrewed loyal-wingmen drones that will fly in tandem with the F-47.
F-47 Like F-22?
Kendall expressed his doubts about partners or allies being given access to the F-47 program, and he surmised that there would likely be little outside interest in purchasing a throttled-back version of the aircraft.
He acknowledged that previous export prohibitions, like those covering the F-22 program, ultimately increased the costs of the program and shuttered production lines—some might even say prematurely.
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.
