For a fraction of the cost of the F-47, swarms of drones can be built and integrated with existing airframes like the F-22 and F-35, all of which can enhance the Air Force’s ability to project power without breaking the bank.
The Trump administration has proudly announced the F-47, America’s sixth-generation warplane that is slated to replace the F-22A Raptor, America’s vaunted fifth-generation air superiority warplane.
It was announced with great fanfare by the forty-seventh president (who likely chose the “F-47” name as well), who hailed it as the “most powerful” warplane ever built by any country to date. Indeed, on paper, it is unlikely to be surpassed by any other warplane.
Sadly, paper is probably the only place that this plane will continue to exist in any meaningful way. That’s because the cost of each warplane in the F-47 family will be a staggering $300 million—three times higher than the cost of Lockheed Martin’s already-unaffordable F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation multirole fighter.
Incidentally, the F-35 has consistently run over its original budget, has struggled with delays, and has yet to truly prove itself worth the high costs and time commitments given to the Lockheed program. If Boeing’s F-47 encounters similar problems, its prohibitive cost could run even higher.
A Self-Inflicted Financial Wound
The Trump administration expects America’s broken defense industry to suddenly turn on a dime and produce an aircraft that is even more complex than the F-35 or the F-22, on time and at cost? Adding to the ludicrousness, the Trump administration has awarded the contract to Boeing, which has struggled for the last several years to meet its existing contractual obligations with the United States military in an assortment of programs—most notably including the new Air Force One. The selection of Boeing over Lockheed Martin is especially bizarre, considering that all of Boeing’s major product lines have struggled immensely this last decade with poor quality, mismanagement, and cost overruns.
From the disastrous 737-Max rollout to the failed Starliner program that left astronauts who traveled aboard the Boeing Starliner last year stranded for nine months aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Boeing’s best days appear to be behind it. Why would Uncle Sam entrust this firm with a plane that the Air Force is openly referring to as their “crown jewel?”
Not to worry: the Pentagon insists that they will jointly develop this plane with American allies to reduce the cost on the American taxpayer. But President Trump poured cold water on that notion when he suggested that “toned-down” versions would need to be sold to American allies—“because someday, maybe they’re not our allies, right?”
Setting aside the president’s questionable salesmanship—what NATO ally in their right mind would want to buy an intentionally inferior plane?—the hope that there will be offsets sufficient enough to save the already squeezed American taxpayer appears very unlikely.
Given the cost of the system, the fact that Boeing has failed to deliver on many of its promises over the years—even evoking the ire of President Trump, notably over the delays with new Boeing 747-800s for the Air Force One replacement—it seems that, possibly, the president is giving this lucrative contract to help bail out the iconic American aerospace firm. This wouldn’t be the first time that the government has done this: by most accounts, the YF-23 built by Boeing in the late 1980s was superior to Lockheed Martin’s YF-22, but the Air Force went with the YF-22, at least in part because the Pentagon feared that Lockheed would shutter its airframe production line if it didn’t get that contract. That contract was a lifeline thrown to Lockheed, and Trump seems to be doing the same thing today with Boeing and the F-47.
Boeing Won’t Be Able to Mass Produce This Plane
Setting aside the specific issues with Boeing, something is deeply wrong with the state of the U.S. defense industrial base. The last several years of the Ukraine War has proven this. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte commented recently, “From Los Angeles to Ankara,” the NATO defense industrial base takes a year to produce that which it takes the Russian industrial base three months to make.
Not only is Boeing going to struggle making this system, but the overall defense industrial base will be unable to produce these complex and expensive planes in any meaningful time. At a time when President Trump has made a priority of wrangling the out-of-control federal budget—with the aid of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) run by billionaire and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk—the F-47 seems to be doing the opposite: feeding an unaccountable, elephantine, and needlessly expensive defense bureaucracy.
Last year, Musk spoke to an audience of senior leaders in the United States military. In that talk, Musk rightly stated that “manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones.” He followed on those remarks with a series of tweets in which Musk called those building jets, like the F-35 (or F-47), “idiots.”
For a fraction of the cost of the F-47, swarms of drones can be built and integrated with existing airframes like the F-22 and F-35, all of which can enhance the Air Force’s ability to project power without breaking the bank.
Sadly, it appears that the Air Force and the president have instead chosen a different path—at the American taxpayer’s expense.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a contributor at Popular Mechanics, who consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.Image: U.S. Air Force.
