Pentagon 'All In' On Air Force's F-47, Puts Navy's F/A-XX On Ice

Yahoo

6 days ago

The Pentagon's proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget fully commits to the U.S. Air Force's F-47 sixth-generation stealth fighter, while effectively shelving the U.S. Navy's plans for a next-generation carrier-based F/A-XX combat jet. U.S. officials say a key driver behind this decision is a fear that America's industrial base cannot develop and produce two different advanced stealth fighters simultaneously. In addition, previously planned purchases of stealth F-35 Joint Strike Fighters are set to be slashed by more than half as part of a shift in resources to key upgrades for those aircraft and sustaining existing fleets.
Earlier today, senior U.S. officials briefed TWZ and other outlets on the Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal, the release of which has occurred with little fanfare after being significantly delayed, a significant departure from previous years.
'F-47, the first crewed sixth-generation fighter, is moving forward with $3.5 billion in funding following President Trump's March 2025 decision to proceed with Boeing's development,' a senior U.S. military official said. 'The Navy's FA-XX program will maintain minimal development funding to preserve the ability to leverage F-47 work while preventing over-subscription of qualified defense industrial base engineers.'
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth first publicly disclosed the $3.5 billion figure at a Congressional hearing earlier this month.
'We are maintaining a request of $74 million for the F/A-XX program in this budget to complete the design of that aircraft. We did make a strategic decision to go all in on F-47,' a senior U.S. defense official added. This is 'due to our belief that the industrial base can only handle going fast on one program at this time, and the presidential priority to go all in on F-47, and get that program right.'
Funding the completion of the design work on the Navy's program will allow for 'maintaining the option for F/A-XX in the future,' the senior U.S. defense official continued.
Earlier this month, Boeing Defense and Space CEO Steve Parker very publicly pushed back on the idea that the U.S. industrial base was not capable of working on the F-47 and F/A-XX at the same time. Northrop Grumman has also been in the running for F/A-XX, something the company pressed ahead with after dropping out of the Air Force's NGAD combat jet competition in 2023. Lockheed Martin was reportedly eliminated from the Navy's next-generation fighter competition in March.
Regardless, the F/A-XX program has been very clearly in limbo for months now. In March, reports indicated that a contract announcement for the Navy's next-generation fighter would follow quickly from the F-47 news, but that never materialized. A report earlier this month from Bloomberg News, based on budget documents the outlet had seen, said that the Pentagon was instead moving to redirect $500 million in funding from F/A-XX to F-47, and called attention to the industrial base concerns.
'At this time, I would say pretty much everything is under consideration to get the TACAIR [tactical aviation] capability that our warfighters need as quickly as possible,' the senior U.S. defense official added in response to a question about whether a navalized variant of the F-47 might now be on the table. 'That's really what we're looking at the most, is the schedule of all these programs.'
Though the F-47 and the F/A-XX have long been expected, in very broad terms, to share some mission sets, including acting as an aerial 'quarterback' for drones, fundamental requirements for a land-based fighter differ significantly from those of a carrier-based design. The F-35 offers a prime example of this reality in that, despite their outward appearance, there is only approximately 20 percent parts commonality between the land and carrier-based variants, as well as the short takeoff and vertical landing-capable version. Aviation Week reported last year that the Navy was forging ahead with F/A-XX as a distinctly independent effort from the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) combat jet program, which resulted in the F-47.
As noted, the Pentagon's latest budget proposal for the 2026 Fiscal Year also includes cuts to planned purchases of F-35s.
'F-35 procurement is reduced from 74 to 47 aircraft,' according to the senior U.S. military official, who did not offer a breakdown by variant. Previous reports have said that it is F-35As for the Air Force that are getting slashed.
Doing this will allow for 'maintaining minimum production rates, with increased funding for Block 4 modernization and significant investment in spares of about a billion dollars to address sustainment and readiness challenges.'
The Block 4 upgrade package promises major improvements for all variants of the F-35, including a new radar, improved electronic warfare capabilities, and an expanded arsenal, but has suffered significant delays and cost growth. Joint Strike Fighters also need an additional set of hardware and software updates, called Technology Refresh 3 (TR-3), to even be able to accept the planned Block 4 upgrades, work on which also encountered significant difficulties. The U.S. military went so far as to stop accepting deliveries of new F-35s for roughly a year due to issues with TR-3. Starting in May, executives from Lockheed Martin have been publicly saying that their position is that the development of TR-3 is now complete, though the U.S. military had yet to formally sign off on that as of earlier this month.
Spare parts shortages, coupled with other maintenance and supply chain problems, have been longstanding issues for the F-35 program. These problems, collectively, have been a major contributor to low readiness rates for all U.S. F-35 fleets for years now, something TWZ has explored in great detail in this past feature.
The Fiscal Year 2026 budget request does include $3 billion in funding for more F-15EX Eagle II fighters for the Air Force, which would increase the planned fleet size of those aircraft from 98 to 129. That service is also asking for $870 million to continue moving ahead on its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone program, which would support continued work on the initial General Atomics YFQ-42A and Anduril YFQ-44A designs, as well as the ongoing refinement of concepts of operations.
When it comes to any annual budget request from the Pentagon, it is also important to note that Congress still has to approve the proposal and fund it. Legislators regularly make changes to defense spending plans, including when it comes to major weapon system programs. F/A-XX funding has notably been under threat from Congress in the past.
Many lawmakers have been raising concerns about dwindling U.S. combat jet inventories across the services, in general, for years now. Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, asked Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin at a hearing in May about whether he would be interested in receiving additional upgraded F-16s to bolster his force. The Air Force's top officer told Cotton he would get back to him about whether that was an 'advisable situation.'
Lockheed Martin has also started pitching a concept for a 'Ferrari' or 'NASCAR upgrade' to the F-35's core 'chassis,' together with a huge and as-yet unproven claim that it could offer 80 percent of the capability of a sixth-generation design at 50 percent of the cost. TWZ has noted in the past that any work toward that end could help provide a hedge against delays with the F-47 and/or F/A-XX.
The Pentagon does continues to insist that it has not completely abandoned the idea of next-generation carrier-based combat jets for the Navy, despite its stated focus on the F-47 at present.
'The department is dedicated to sixth-generation capability. So that's where we're going,' the senior U.S. military official said during the briefing today. 'How that's achieved right now, the F-47 is on path to be the leading agent of that, but sixth-gen is where we want to go.'
For the moment at least, the F-47, and by extension Boeing, has emerged as the big next-generation tactical aviation winner in the Pentagon's latest proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
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