US President Donald Trump announces Pentagon’s decision to pursue next-generation fighter jet F-47
Washington DC: US President Donald Trump revealed during joint statements with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth from the Oval Office on Friday (local time) the Pentagon’s decision to go on with the development of a next-generation fighter plane, assigned the F-47. According to Trump, Boeing received the deal for the newest US combat aircraft.
“At my direction, the United States Air Force is moving forward with the world’s first sixth-generation fighter jet, number six, sixth generation; nothing in the world comes even close to it, and it’ll be known as the F-47,” Trump stated via CNN.
He went on to characterize the F-47 as “the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built” and disclose that an experimental jet had been covertly flying for over five years.
“The most sophisticated, most capable, most deadly airplane ever produced will be the F-47. We are sure that an experimental form of the jet much surpasses the capacity of any other country, as it has been covertly flying for over five years,” he stated.
The Air Force had admitted under his last government that it had flown a full-scale jet prototype.
As to CNN, “After a fierce and exhaustive competition between some of America’s top aerospace companies, the Air Force is going to be awarding Boeing the contract for the next generation air dominance platform.”
The program has been known as Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) up till today. But in an allusion to his presidency, Trump declared the aircraft will be the F-47. Usually, the Air Force announces the aircraft designations.
“This has been in the works for a long period; it’s something the likes of which nobody has seen before,” Trump remarked.
Designed to provide the sixth-generation fighter aircraft for the US military, newer and more sophisticated than the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, which has suffered from significant cost overruns and delays, the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program is meant to create.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has been critical of the F-35 and supports instead unmanned drone swarms as a more affordable and efficient substitute.
Musk said on social media in November, “Suddenly, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35,” CNN noted.
