U.S. Air Force General Confirms Progress on F-47 Sixth Generation Production Line

The United States Air Force is moving closer to establishing a full-rate production line for the F-47 sixth generation fighter, with the Air Force’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Brigadier General Timothy Helfrich indicating that the new manufacturing line will appear in the near future. The programme is continuing on an accelerated schedule, with Boeing currently building the first flight prototype, while the first flight still scheduled for 2028. Helfrich identified fighter production capacity as a strategic requirement for the service and said the Air Force needs to expand existing manufacturing capacity while establishing additional production lines for the F-47 and Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

Commenting on the state of the U.S. fighter industry, Helfrich observed that there are “only three active fighter production lines,” identifying the F-35 production facility in Fort Worth, the F-15EX line in St. Louis and the F-16 line in Greenville. “So we need to grow the existing production lines, and we need to – or at least maximise what we can get out of those existing production lines, and we need to add production lines.” “We’re not too far away from an F-47 production line, which will be additive to the production capacity,” he added. 

Boeing has been substantially expanding its facilities in St. Louis, Missouri, where the firm already produces the F-15EX. The nearly $2 billion expansion involves more than one million square feet of additional production and support facilities. Boeing has not explicitly stated that the entire construction project is dedicated to the F-47, but the expansion is expected to support the company’s growing next-generation fighter manufacturing requirements. At least 185 F-47s are currently planned, although the aircraft remains several years behind rival Chinese sixth generation fighter programs.

In mid-September the U.S. Air Force and Boeing were reported to be making progress towards finalising the design of the F-47. The F-47 formally entered its engineering and manufacturing development phase in 2025, despite this having previously been announced in 2022. A first flight in 2028 would represent an unusually rapid transition from contract award to flight testing, although the Air Force has repeatedly maintained that the maturity of technologies developed during the preceding risk-reduction phase makes such a schedule achievable. Boeing has committed the highest level of internal investment in its history to developing the F-47, which is the only fighter of its generation that the U.S. Air Force intends to procure.