US: Boeing Wins Trump's Contract For Next-Generation F-47 Fighter Jet

US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that Boeing has eon the contract for building the US Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance, (NGAD) jet F-47. The announcement came at the White House in presence of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Air Force leadership.

According to The Pentagon, the next generation aircraft is expected to display stealth and penetration capabilities far exceeding those of its current fleet. The decision came amid the fear of a potential conflict with China.

"After a rigorous and thorough competition between some of America's top aerospace companies, the Air Force is going to be awarding the contract for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) platform to Boeing", NDTV reported quoting Trump.

"Nothing in the world comes even close to it, and it'll be known as the F-47, the generals picked a title, and it's a beautiful number, F-47," said Trump.

About The Contract

According to The Associated Press, the initial contract to proceed with production on a version for the Air Force is worth an estimated USD 20 billion.

As per reports, the F-47 will be developed as the replacement for the F-22 stealth warplane which has been serving the US Air Force for some two decades. The F-22 Raptor reportedly features stealth technology, a high degree of maneuverability and the ability to supercruise,

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2018 that the NGAD airframe could cost up to $300 million apiece -- significantly more than various other aircraft currently in the US inventory.

NGAD Project Paused Last Year

Last year, the Biden administration's Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, ordered a pause on the NGAD program to review if the aircraft was still needed or if the program, which was first designed in 2018, needed to be modified to reflect the past few years of warfighting advances.

A senior Air Force officer said earlier this month that the service conducted a study following the pause last year, which concluded that "not only in the past, not only in the present but in the future, air superiority matters."

"What this study told us is we tried a whole bunch of different options and there is no more viable option than NGAD to achieve air superiority in this highly contested environment," Major General Joseph Kunkel told a symposium in Colorado.