[Text/Observer Network Wang Shichun] According to a report on the U.S. "War Zone" website on September 22, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Alvin announced at the AFA Aviation, Space and Cyber Conference that Boeing has begun production for the U.S. Air Force. A prototype of the sixth generation fighter F-47, and strives to have the aircraft undergo its first flight test in 2028.
The Air Force chief of staff said that a few months after US President Trump announced in March that Boeing had won the bid for the sixth-generation aircraft game, he had started the production of the first test prototype. The Air Force has previously only said the F-47 is expected to make its first flight before the end of Trump's current term, which ends on Jan. 2029.
On March 21, 2025, U.S. President Trump announced that he would officially name the NGAD (the "next generation of air advantage") manned fighter in development as the F-47, and awarded the development and production contract for the aircraft to the U.S. company Boeing, and released a partial rendering of the aircraft.
“After years of effort, hundreds of hours of testing, 1,000-man-year laboratory work... we have to speed up the pace, I have to tell you, it’s almost 2026.
In addition to revealing the timing of the first flight, Alvin also stressed that the F-47 is only part of a broader modernization effort to ensure the Air Force maintains an advantage over any potential adversary.
He said, “The opponents won’t stop and rest. They won’t stop and say, ‘Well, maybe U.S. aircraft development has slowed, we should slow down too, maybe we can stop and rest.’ They didn’t do that. When we look to the future, when we develop all the next-generation features, we can’t be obsessed with the platform. It’s not just weapons and platforms. We have to understand the system above the platform.
The Air Force has previously only said the F-47 is expected to make its first flight before the end of Trump's current term, which ends on Jan. 2029.
U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Main said that for the purpose of operational security, the current renderings of the F-47 do not necessarily completely reflect what it looks like in reality, and that some intelligence analysts in China are expected to spend a lot of time studying this picture.
Troy Meyn said, “Happy luck, it’s not easy to get any information from here, we’re very careful about it.”
Details about the F-47 program and the design of the aircraft itself remain highly classified. The only information known is that the F-47 will have a combat radius of more than 1,000 nautical miles, speeds exceeding Mach 2, and be equipped with the latest stealth technology. The U.S. Air Force intends to purchase at least 185 such aircraft, each of which may cost more than $300 million.
It is worth mentioning that on September 22, the official social media account of the U.S. company Boeing released an animated video of the U.S. Air Force's sixth generation fighter aircraft.But the animation did not show the F-47 flight and combat simulation scenes, but only dynamically processed the previously published images using artificial intelligence technology.
But when it comes to the "War Zone" website, they are still concerned about the Duck Wings. Since March, the two effects charts released by Boeing containing the prominent duck wing front plane have been a topic worth discussing. Duck wings can enhance mobility but are not conducive to the pursuit of extreme low observability designs. However, the "War Zone" website says that some aspects of the F-47 effect chart may be deliberately misleading.
For a long time, the F-47 has been in high attention, allegedly possessing the next generation of full-width frequency bands, including significantly reduced infrared features on the basis of low radar cross-section. The U.S. Air Force has repeatedly stated that "spectrum warfare" and "spectrum advantage" have been the main focus areas of the entire NGAD program.