
United States Air Force sixth-generation fighter jet Making a significant change in its F-47 acquisition strategyThe new approach will allow the service to further refine the jet's technology, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said Tuesday. will provide more ownership and will enable future upgrades to be made faster and easier. This change in strategy comes as a result of lessons learned, particularly from the lack of control over sustainment data in the F-35 contract with Lockheed Martin.
A Different Method from the F-35 Approach to the F-47
At a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Allvin confirmed to Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker that the service is taking a significantly different acquisition approach for the Boeing-built F-47, formerly called Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD), than it did for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
“The primary difference is that as the [F-47] project progresses, we now have more control,” Allvin said. “We have more internal resources. We own more of the technology base. We have guided a government reference architecture, so we own the mission systems. And so others can come in and play, but the development and the upgrade are ours.”
The “government reference architecture” (GRA) referred to here is a government-provided roadmap that guides a program’s design, development, production and sustainment processes. This approach aims to increase the Air Force’s control over the F-47 program, allowing it to more directly manage the system’s future evolution.
The F-35 Experience: “Purchase Abuse” and Lessons Learned
Senior Air Force officials, particularly former Secretary Frank Kendall, have repeatedly publicly expressed their frustration with how the military’s F-35 deal with Lockheed Martin was structured. Kendall lamented during a May 2023 roundtable with reporters that the Pentagon had failed to obtain rights to F-35 sustainment data from Lockheed Martin when the original deal was signed.
This was due to a procurement philosophy at the time called “Total System Performance,” meaning that the contractor on a program owned the system for its entire lifecycle. The Government Accountability Office also noted in a September 2023 report that the failure to obtain rights to F-35 technical data was hampering the military’s ability to sustain the aircraft on its own and slowing down repairs.
Kendall felt so strongly that this was a major misstep that he called it “procurement abuse” during a May 2023 discussion, saying such an approach created a “permanent monopoly” for the contractor. He vowed that the Air Force would not make this “serious mistake” with the NGAD program, and noted that the service would have access to the intellectual property it needed. Kendall also said that the NGAD aircraft would use a modular, open system design that would allow the Air Force to bring in new suppliers as it upgrades parts of the system.
Software-Based Upgrades for F-47 and Joint Fighter Jets
General Allvin’s comments Tuesday confirm that this new approach was used in finalizing Boeing’s deal with the Air Force to create the F-47. Allvin said the approach would allow for rapid software-based upgrades that are not tied to the original contractor.
“Upgrades can come at the speed of software, not hardware,” Allvin said. “[Upgrades] can come at the speed of our engineers figuring out how fast to go, rather than dealing with a contractor and paying extra costs.” That statement suggests the Air Force is prioritizing flexibility and adaptability in its future fighter programs.
General Allvin also said the service is developing new joint fighter jets designed by General Atomics and Anduril Industries. YFQ-42 and YFQ-44 Future technology upgrades will also be easier to add, he said. That means upgrading a system holistically, rather than a single platform. “It’s all going to be under the same mission systems architecture,” Allvin said. “So we’re not just upgrading one platform, we’re upgrading one system, and the American taxpayer is going to get more combat capability for their money.”
Allvin also emphasized that lessons were learned from the mistakes made in the F-35 program and that important steps were taken to prevent these mistakes from being repeated in the F-47 program. “We will have some discussions about the F-35 and say that we do not want to repeat this,” he said, adding that the knowledge gained from past experiences guides future purchasing strategies.
Future Vision
The U.S. Air Force’s shift in F-47 acquisition strategy represents a significant shift in defense industry acquisition philosophy. Giving the government greater control over technology, an open systems architecture, and a focus on rapid software-based upgrades are intended to make future military aviation programs more flexible, cost-effective, and adaptable to a rapidly changing threat environment. This approach could serve as a model not only for the F-47, but also for other critical programs such as joint fighter jets. The Air Force’s new strategy aims to make more efficient use of U.S. taxpayer dollars and to ensure that the nation’s air force remains at the cutting edge.