Boeing wins contract for next generation fighter jets

President Donald Trump yesterday said the Pentagon was awarding a contract to Boeing to build a sixth-generation fighter jet that will be known as the F-47, calling the new manned warplane something the likes of which nobody has seen before”.

- ANDREW FEINBERG

Speaking in the Oval Office alongside defence secretary Pete Hegseth and top air force leaders, Mr Trump said the planned fighter had “been in the works for a long period of time” and would be built by Boeing after “a rigorous and thorough competition between some of America's top aerospace companies” for a program that the Defense Department has been calling the “Next Generation Air Dominance” platform.

Mr Trump also described the fighter as “the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built” and said an experimental version of the aircraft “has secretly been flying for almost five years”.

“We're confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation ... every other plane I've seen, every one of them, and it's not even close,” he said. “It's virtually unseeable and unprecedented power. It's got the most power of any jet of its kind ever made. Maneuverability, likewise ... there's never been anything like it.”