F-47 Still ‘Doing Exceptionally Well,’ on Track for 2028 Flight

AURORA, Colo—The advanced F-47 sixth-generation fighter remains on track to fly in the next two years, the senior Air Force acquisition officer overseeing the program said Feb. 25, as the service continues on its ambitious schedule to debut the air superiority-focused fighter by 2028—only three years after the contract was awarded to Boeing in March 2025.

“We’re doing exceptionally well,” Air Force Gen. Dale White told reporters at AFA’s Warfare Symposium. White serves as the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Critical Major Weapon Systems, a new role that oversees the F-47 and other major Air Force initiatives.

Then-Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin first articulated the 2028 goal for the F-47’s first flight in September 2025

Now, roughly half a year closer to that target, White said that the timeline remains on track. He also praised Boeing’s work to invest in the F-47; despite a rocky period in recent years with its commercial aviation business and KC-46 Pegasus refueler, Boeing so far appeared to stay ahead of problems with the F-47.

“Boeing has done a really good job of ramping up the personnel piece,” White said. “In the early phases of these programs … you typically watch the personnel ramp against the timeline and activities you have to get done. They’ve done very well with that.”

The Air Force has said the F-47 will have a combat radius of more than 1,000 nautical miles and be capable of flying at speeds greater than Mach 2. That would make the aircraft’s combat radius nearly double that of the F-22. Air Force plans to acquire more than 185 F-47s to match its current F-22 fleet, with the possibility of exceeding that figure. 

The Air Force and Boeing’s timeline to get an F-47 in the air is fast compared to many other crewed aviation platforms. But Boeing officials are not starting from scratch. While the contract award for the aircraft is relatively recent, the concept is not. The Pentagon began the program that became the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter in the 2010s, flying experimental X-plane prototypes that paved the way for the jet.

The Air Force’s current top air superiority fighter, the F-22, was selected as the winner of the Advanced Tactical Fighter contest in 1991 and first flew a production model six years later—making the progress of the F-47, if it remains on track, remarkably fast.

“We really got a head start on that program, which has paid off tremendously over time,” White said.

The first F-47 airframe is already under production by Boeing.

“Right now we are still on time and on target,” White said.

News Editor Greg Hadley contributed reporting.