Donald Trump announced, this Friday, March 21, the signing of a contract with Boeing For a new generation of stealthy combat aircraft, called F-47. “The Air Force will grant the contract […] In Boeing, “said the Republican president before journalists in the oval office, adding that the amount could not be revealed for security reasons.” The generals have chosen this name, and that is a nice number, F-47 “, said Donald Trump. He added that” nothing in the world could compete “with this new generation of planes, which must replace the previous generation of F-22 Twenty years.
Present alongside the billionaire, the Minister of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said that the new aircraft sent “a very direct and very clear message to our allies to say that we are not going anywhere, and to our enemies, saying that we will be able to project our power throughout the world, without obstacles, for future generations”.
This contract is a boon for Boeing, which has been going through a deep crisis for several years due in particular to the quality problems of its production and a strike of more than fifty days which paralyzed its two main factories in 2024. “We are ready to provide the most perfected and innovative device,” the American aircraft manufacturer reacted.
Three hours after the announcement, its title increased by 4.28 % on the New York Stock Exchange to $ 180.22. Boeing, who competed with Lockheed Martin for this contract with the Air Force, is also in the running with the US Navy to produce his next generation of combat aircraft, this time against Northrop Grumman.
“Almost invisible”
The F-22 replacement program, which is called NGAD, had been interrupted under the administration of Joe Biden in 2024 for cost reasons. The Congressional Budget Office, a body attached to the congress, said in 2018 that new generation planes could cost up to $ 300 million per unit, much more than several planes currently in the American arsenal.
Federal state spending is a major concern of the government of Donald Trump, who has charged billionaire Elon Musk to reduce them drastically. An Air Force official had declared earlier this month than a study carried out after the suspension of the NGAD insisted that “(military) superiority in the air counted, in the past, in the present but also in the future”.
“What this study tells us is that we have tried a lot of different options and that there are no more viable than the NGAD to achieve air superiority in this very contested environment,” said Division General Joseph Kunkel during an event bringing together air defense actors in Colorado.
Introduced in 2005, the previous generation – the F -22 – is equipped with technologies that make it furtive and particularly handy. The performance of the new F-47 is not yet known, but Donald Trump said that it would be “almost invisible”, more handy and more powerful than no other device, and that it could fly “with many drones, as much as we want, which no other plane can do.”