The F-47 Fighter Has a Message for Every Air Force on Earth

Key Points: US Air Force officials caution that images released during the March 2025 announcement of Boeing’s F-47 NGAD fighter are merely “artist’s deceptions” and bear little resemblance to the actual classified aircraft.

-These heavily retouched renderings intentionally obscure key design features to mislead adversaries.

NGAD fighter from U.S. Air Force.

-The article further reveals the NGAD program’s decade-long history, originating from efforts led by former officials Frank Kendall and Andrew Hunter.

-This involved building and flying secret demonstrator “X-planes” (by Boeing and Lockheed Martin) since 2019 to mature high-risk technologies and ensure industrial base competition, not to preview the final F-47 design.

What Has Been Seen of F-47 is Not the Full Picture

Images of the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) F-47 fighter aircraft released on 21 March when Boeing were announced as having been selected for the program’s EMD phase bear minimal resemblance to the real aircraft, according to US Air Force (USAF) who spoke late last week to media outlets. 

The photos are characterized as “mere placeholders and aren’t intended to accurately portray the aircraft”.  Those heavily retouched images show only what purports to be the frontal hemisphere of the aircraft but have been airbrushed to such an extent that no surface features, locations of sensor probes, or any distinguishing details are visible.

The absence of those details and revealing only limited views of the aircraft are, again according to the USAF, “to keep adversaries guessing about the true nature of the NGAD design.”

What the manipulated photos do present is a tailless, stealthy-type design, and focus on the section of the aircraft from the nose and cockpit to the leading edge of the wings. 

Canard foreplanes are also visible, but it is not readily discernible if they are movable and coupled to the flight control system or fixed.  Most significantly, nothing is seen of the air inlets, one of the most important aspects of any low-observable design.

Nothing Being Given Away on F-47

The same senior USAF representatives stated plainly that “we aren’t giving anything away in those pictures.

When asked if they shared any characteristics with the actual aircraft concept, he responded, “[I]s there a resemblance? Maybe.”

Perhaps as a sign that there is not much that is real about what has been seen of the F-47 design, Boeing did not submit any of the images along with the press release announcing its contract award.

The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS), had officially designated these photos as “artist renderings.”  But a long-time aircraft illustrator from US industry explained to 19FortyFive that these sorts of images are really “what we refer to as an ‘artist’s deception’, and not a rendering.”

Program Outlines

Last month, the former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Andrew Hunter spoke at length on a podcast about the F-47 and revealed that the NGAD project had been in the works for a decade or more. 

The kick-off point came in the middle of the previous decade, former Biden Administration USAF Secretary Frank Kendall had been the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

During his tenure, he had begun what became NGAD with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) leading the effort.  This resulted in the construction of several demonstrators or “X-planes” that were separate concepts designed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin (LM). 

Additionally, both the USAF and the US Navy participated in the effort, which cost about $1 billion.

These aircraft were built, according to both Kendall and Hunter, to demonstrate certain design concepts that were rated as high-risk.  The demonstrators were also meant to validate the viability of the program’s requirements for range and payload.

More significantly, there were concerns in parts of the USAF that there were too many proverbial eggs in the same basket when it came to what remains of the US industry’s tactical aircraft design capabilities.

F-47 Fighter from Boeing. Image Credit: U.S. Air Force Screenshot.

Shown is a graphical artist rendering of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform. The rendering highlights the Air Force’s sixth generation fighter, the F-47. The NGAD Platform will bring lethal, next-generation technologies to ensure air superiority for the Joint Force in any conflict. (U.S. Air Force graphic)

Shown is a graphical artist rendering of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform. The rendering highlights the Air Force’s sixth generation fighter, the F-47. The NGAD Platform will bring lethal, next-generation technologies to ensure air superiority for the Joint Force in any conflict. (U.S. Air Force graphic)

“Industrial base considerations had a lot to do with me starting the Aerospace Innovation Initiative.  I wanted to reintroduce competition for tactical aircraft” after years of Lockheed Martin market dominance, especially with the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Kendall added.

In the past, Kendall has been critical of LM’s near-monopoly when it comes to the F-35 program and has referred to the structure of the program as “acquisition malpractice.”  Clearly, there was concern that leaving the business of stealthy aircraft design to just one company was considered a threat to the long-term viability of the industry.

The two former Pentagon officials also revealed that two of these X-plane designs were built sometime after 2017 and had flown in 2019 and 2022.  They were demonstrators for experimental purposes and not reflective of what would be a “tactical design.”

About the Author: 

Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw.  He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design.  Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.