“Nothing in the world comes even close to it, and it’ll be known as the F-47.” These were President Donald J. Trump’s words during his proclamation of the beginning of the world’s first sixth-generation fighter jet, ushering in a new era of American airpower. But as Boeing readies to construct this marvel of technology, a storm brews in its St. Louis defense factories, where 3,200 machinists are ready to walk off the job. The reaction, and its new Pentagon contracting strategy, says a lot about the evolving world of defense manufacturing and the high-stakes competition to bring the next generation of air superiority to the battlefield.
Boeing leadership, in particular CEO Robert Kelly Ortberg, has attempted to convey a sense of calm amid the threat of disruption. “So the order of magnitude of this is much, much less than what we saw last fall. That was roughly 30,000 machinists,” Ortberg said, trying to play down the probable effect of the current labor standoff. He added that Boeing is ready: “We’ll manage through this. I wouldn’t worry too much about the implications of the strike. We’ll manage our way through that.” This confidence is rooted not only in the smaller scale of the strike but also in the company’s contingency planning and, crucially, in a fundamental shift in its contracting strategy.
The lessons of 2024 are still fresh for Boeing. The 53-day machinists’ work stoppage of last year ran the company an estimated $5.5 billion in losses, compounding by the cost risks of fixed-priced development contracts. Under those deals, overruns and delays are charged straight to the contractor’s bottom line a model that worked cataclysmically on complicated, high-stakes programs such as the KC-46 Pegasus tanker and T-7 Red Hawk trainer, which collectively incurred billions in surprise bills. As Ortberg candidly admitted, we’ve gone from today’s problem, to today’s problem, to today’s problem, and that’s because we’re not looking around the corner enough on these programs. The company’s new doctrine is clear: We’re not making the errors of the past and signing up for fixed price development, high risk programs.
Instead, Boeing is embracing cost-plus contracts for its most ambitious projects, including the F-47 NGAD. Under this scheme, the Pentagon pays for allowable expenses and tacks on a profit margin, protecting the contractor from the full force of unexpected technical challenges. It is a direct reaction to decades of defense procurement horror stories, ranging from the A-12 Avenger’s notorious cancellation and litigation to the runaway costs of the C-17 cargo plane. As one industry attorney described it, “The administration seems bent on repeating the idiotic attempts to convert highly risky RDT&E to fixed price an effort that has failed distinctly on at least five occasions in the 50 years of my experience.”
This turn toward cost-plus is not just an accounting trick it is an acknowledgment of the sobering technical hurdles that characterize sixth-generation fighter development. The F-47, the centerpiece of the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) family, will weave together next-generation stealth, sensor fusion, and long-range strike capabilities to offset the most advanced adversaries. Its design is modular, allowing for quick upgrades and effortless incorporation of new technologies like AI-based threat detection, adaptive engines, and combat drones that cooperate. The digital engineering basis of the F-47 and government-owned architecture aim to speed development and limit the possibility of obsolescence a lesson from the long development times of legacy programs.
But the F-47’s rise is paid for in part by its naval equivalent. The Navy’s F/A-XX program, originally conceived as the carrier-based solution to sixth-generation threats, has had its budget cut in half to a bare-bones $74 million for design efforts an 84 percent reduction from the previous year. Pentagon officials have cited industrial base constraints, arguing that the industrial base can only handle going fast on one program at this time, and the presidential priority to go all-in on F-47, and get that program right. The consequence is a crisis for the Navy’s future air wings, with the aging F/A-18 Super Hornet and limited fleet of F-35Cs remaining to bridge the gap.
As the Air Force charges forward with the F-47, encouraged by a $3.5 billion budget request for FY’26 and the prospect of introducing the world’s first operational sixth-generation fighter, Boeing’s capacity to contain labor strife and manage cost-plus contracting complexities will be under close observation. The potential is huge not just for the fiscal well-being of the company but for the technological advantage of American airpower. As Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated, “Now we have the F-47, which sends a very direct, clear message to our allies that we’re not going anywhere… and to our enemies that we can, and we will be able to project power around the globe, unimpeded, for generations to come.”
