President Donald Trump announced Friday that Boeing It will build a future air force fighter, which is called the Pentagon, will have the abilities of secrecy and penetration that far exceeds the abilities of its current fleet and are essential in a potential conflict with China.
Going with a crew known as the next generation air dominance or Ngad will serve as a quarterback to the fleet of a future drone aircraft designed to be able to penetrate the air defense in China and any other potential enemies. The initial continuation agreement in the Air Force version is worth $ 20 billion.
47. The President who announced the prize in the White House with Minister of Defense Pete Hegset and Air Force leadership said with a smile that the new fighter will be named F-47.
Gene. David Allvin, Chief of Air Force Staff, said, “We will write the next generation of the modern air war.” And HegSeth said that the future fleet “sends a very clear and direct message to our ally that we are not going anywhere.”
Critics have questioned the cost and necessity of the program, as the Pentagon is still trying to fully produce its current most advanced current, the F-35, which is expected to become more than $ 1.7 trillion during life. In addition, the future Pentagon bomber, the B-21 Raider, will have many of the same top technologies in advanced materials, AI, drive and secrecy.
For the US and more international partners, more than 1100 F-35 years have been built.
Fleet about 100 futureB-21 Stealth BombersIt is also planned at an estimated total cost of at least $ 130 billion. The first B-21 aircraft is now in trial years.
Since drones and space war are developing, which is likely to be the center of any struggle with China, Dan Grazier, a military award analyst, asks whether “another excellent fighter with the crew is really the right platform.” Grazier, the director of the National Security Reforms program at the Stimson Center, said $ 20 billion is “just a seed. The total road costs will be hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Some details of what the new Ngad fighter would seem to be public, although Trump said that early versions have been performing trial flights in the last five years. Plot Lockheed Martin And Boeing highlighted a flat plane without a tail with a sharp nose.
The selection of Boeing, which faced the intensive pressure of Trump over exceeding the cost and delay of the Air Force One program, came after an independent analysis of the Air Force, the official said on condition of anonymity to provide further details of the selection. The Boeing offer was still determined as “the best overall value for the government”, the official said.
Air forces did not state how many aircraft will be made. In his statement, however, Allvin said that more F-47 would be produced than the F-22, which is an advanced fighter that replaces. About 180 fighter aircraft F-22 are now in operation.
A separate Navy Treaty for its version of Ngad fighter is still in competition between Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
Last year, the Secretary of the Air Force Biden Administration, Frank Kendall, ordered a break in the NGAD program to examine whether the aircraft was still needed, or if the program was first designed in 2018, it must be modified to reflect the last few years of combat progress.
This review of Think tanks and academic communities examined what conflict with China would look with Ngad and then without it – and decided that Ngad was still necessary. Kendall then left the decision that the company would build a fighter aircraft on the upcoming Trump administration, the defense official said, talking about the state of anonymity to provide details of the decision -making.
Ngad will bring “a completely different level of low observability”, the official said. It will also have a much longer range than the F-35 or other current fighter aircraft, so it will require less replenishment. The future unmanned version of NGAD is also planned as a PentagonImproves AI for aircraft,The clerk said.
This story was originally listed on Fortune.com
