🔷 The F-47

Boeing F-47

After intense competition, program waffling, and decision delays, Boeing was declared the winner of the US Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, the world's first 6th-gen fighter.

The Lineage

The F-47 adds to Boeing's fighter legacy, which includes iconic aircraft such as the P-51 Mustang, F-4 Phantom, F-15 Eagle, and F/A-18 Hornet. That said, if you ignore all the mergers and acquisitions connected to those aircraft, the last fighter designed, developed, and produced under a Boeing moniker was the 1930s-era P-26 Peashooter.

Boeing's winning F-47 design likely draws from 2 earlier tail-less fighter X-planes—the X-36 and the YF-118 Bird of Prey.

The X-36 flew in the late 1990s and was an unmanned sub-scale design.

The Bird of Prey project also happened in the late 1990s, but it was full-scale, manned, and had a very advanced design. Despite the crazy look, the Bird of Prey was aerodynamically stable enough to use manual hydraulic flight controls, not fly-by-wire like the F-16, F-22, and F-35 use.  

Speaking of X-planes, with the F-47 announcement also came the disclosure that DARPA had a 10-year hand in the program, funding the development and testing of the X-planes that the Air Force had often referred to in recent years.

Those 2 X-planes, built by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, first flew in 2019 and 2022. To our knowledge, these X-plane designations are still classified. [Dear DARPA, please fix this.]

The Designation

Along with the NGAD winner announcement was the designation: the F-47.

The 40-series seems fitting, given the news last month that NGAD’s 1st autonomous wingmen were designated the FQ-42 and FQ-44.

What’s less than ideal was to pick ‘47’ for the first manned platform in the series instead of ’41.’ There’s not much room to grow in the naming series, given that NGAD is still projected to have iterative tranches similar to the CCA program increment structure.

Was it named the F-47 for political reasons—POTUS 47? You bet it was. “It's a beautiful number,” said President Trump.

The name is still TBD, so let's hope the Air Force doesn’t name it anything with an “II” (i.e., Raptor II). The world still side-eyes those F-15EX Eagle II and HH-60W Jolly Green II names.

So What

For Boeing: Winning the NGAD competition marks a resurgence as a prime integrator in the air superiority market and a much-needed win. The decision results in a $20B phase to develop a production-ready F-47. That's not even counting production itself, though. Assuming the Air Force buys 200 and they cost $200M each, there is another $40B in production contracts to be had in the 2030s.

For the Air Force: Since the service's establishment in 1947, there have only been a few purpose-built air superiority fighters: The F-86, F-15, F-22, and now the F-47.

Power

The Air Force has also stated that the F-47 will fly during President Trump’s administration, which runs to 2029.

What’s less clear is what will power it.

The F-47 program doesn’t include the engine work. That is the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) program. In January, GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney received matching $3.5 billion contracts to each build a prototype.

The timing of those engines is likely to be ready for flight testing in 2028, but those are prototypes, and even if they were production engines, expect another $1-2B and years of flight testing and tech maturation in the early 2030s. Putting those on the first F-47s is a risk-on-risk that would make any program manager cringe.

Given Boeing’s propensity for GE engines in its active fighter lines—F414 in the F/A-18E/F and F110 in the F-15EX—we’d put money that the F-47 will initially use F110-GE-129 engines that are familiar to the Boeing engineering team.

What Now

Expect Boeing to go silent in the coming months, with their heads down in execution mode, but they may have already started building a head start. The presumed F-47 factory broke ground last year; the $1.8B facility covers 1.1 million square feet and will open in 2026 in St. Louis, attached to the airport.

Don’t forget about Navy NGAD—a winner announcement is imminent, and it’s down to Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

What about Lockheed Martin? Expect to see increased emphasis on driving value in the F-35 product line. We want those often-teased F-35 stealth fuel tanks!

In That Number

145

Strategic Command stated the US Air Force needs 145 B-21 bombers, 45 more than the current “at least 100” plan.

TRIVIA

What World War II weapon’s fuel became a source of illicit alcohol consumption among Americans serving in the war?

A) Torpedoes
B) Bazookas
C) Flamethrowers

On the Radar

Two autonomous mobile missile launchers made the news…in 2 different ways. Oshkosh revealed its Marine Corps-based Joint Light Tactical Vehicle-based ROGUE-Fires, equipped not with anti-ship missiles, but with HIMARS munitions. Meanwhile, a Raytheon-led industry team demoed a new autonomous launcher, dubbed DeepStrike, firing a rocket prototype—the Joint Reduced Range Rocket (JR3) training round.

• The Merge’s Take: Raytheon’s DeepStrike was developed through collaboration with Forterra, Oshkosh Defense, and Ursa Major—so Oshkosh has a hand in both mobile missile launchers. OBTW, so does Forterra, the autonomy provider. FYI, the JR3 is a missile that looks and acts like the real thing, but has no warhead and only flies <10 miles—it’s replacing a legacy training missile called the Reduced-Range Practice Rocket (RRPR).

There will be 1 VIP. The Air Force has decided to pick 1 aircraft type to replace its aging fleet of Boeing 757-based C-32A and Boeing 737-based C-40 fleet for VIP transport.

• The Merge’s Take: The C-32A and C-40 fleet size totals 15 aircraft, so there is a big deal to be had. While a Boeing aircraft might be the shoo-in due to size requirements and US politics, it doesn’t mean that Boeing will win the contract. Remember, last year SNC won a $13B contract to develop and build 5 747-8 based E-4C SAOC (E-4B replacement) after Boeing was eliminated from the bidding over data rights. L3Harris is another contender to keep an eye on—they have a track record of modifying commercial aircraft for defense use, too.

The Space Force has a string of notable happenings:

• Conducting a commercial review to find potential alternatives for trading one-off, billion-dollar systems for low-cost, proliferated constellations. (Space Systems Command)

• Changing the way its buying satellites for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) program. (Space Development Agency)

• Inheriting all commercial SATCOM contracts from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)

• Planning to add over 100 satellites in orbit in 2025—doubling the number of the satellites they currently operate

• Released a Data and AI Strategic Action Plan with an aggressive list and schedule of deliverables for FY25 (which ends in 6 months)

They Said It

“The time is now to start looking at the next one.”

— Air Force Gen. Randall Reed, head of US Transportation Command, on the need to start planning on a new airlifter to replace the C-5 and C-17 fleets.

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Knowledge Bombs

• Australia F/A-18F Super Hornets are flight-testing LRASM stealth anti-ship cruise missiles (IG pic!)

• China’s J-36 stealth fighter-bomber was observed for the second time, and a third time

• Raytheon executed the first-ever helicopter launch of its Coyote drone interceptor (IG pic!)

• The EU plans to exclude the US, UK, and Turkey from its $150B rearmament fund

• Gravitics won a Space Force $60M STRATFI contract to demo its Orbital Carrier, which is capable of pre-positioning military assets in space for tactically responsive use

• Anduril was awarded a $86M SOCOM contract for autonomy software

• Australia & Canada announced a $4B over-the-horizon (OTH) radar agreement—Australia’s largest defense export deal in history

• Booz Allen Hamilton & Shield AI are partnering on autonomous solutions for the US government

• Shield AI delivered its first ViDAR systems to the Marine Corps for Group 2 ISR drone program

• The Army is planning to invest $1B in Transformation in Contact 2.0 through 2027—more drones, more vehicles, more electronic warfare systems

• Cummings Aerospace completed the first Army flight test of its turbojet-powered, 3D-printed kamikaze drone

• The Army selected Raytheon, Anduril, and AEVEX to compete for its Launched Effects–Short Range (LE-SR) program

• Kratos revealed that they are developing a low-cost hypersonic drone

• General Atomics successfully tested a dual-SDB rack on the MQ-9 Reaper and loaded GBU-39B/B Laser SDBs—revealing one of the first public pictures of them

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ANSWER
A. In the first part of the Pacific War, US torpedoes were powered by a miniature steam engine burning 180-proof ethyl alcohol, essentially the same neutral grain alcohol found in beer, wine, and spirits. Because liquor wasn’t otherwise accessible, soldiers would drain a bit of the fuel from a torpedo and mix it with fruit juice, a cocktail known as Torpedo Juice. Later, the Navy added toxic methanol along with red dye to provide a visual warning to deter drinking, though sailors turned to distilling it to remove the impurities.