A US Navy F/A-18E Super Hornet, the jet the F/A-XX is meant to replace, launching with its afterburners lit from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the Pacific in November 2016 · PO3 Chad D. Anderson/U.S. Navy, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

Article · 2026-10-01 · 7 min read · Aerospace and defense · Stocks

Boeing beats Northrop for the Navy's next carrier fighter jet

The Pentagon valued the full-scale development contract at more than $20 billion, buying test aircraft for a jet meant to augment and then replace the Super Hornet and Growler from the 2030s, but did not say whether it is cost-plus or fixed-price, which matters to a Boeing defense unit that took a $280 million charge on its fixed-price Air Force One contract in the second quarter; Boeing, which won the Air Force's F-47 in 2025, now holds both services' next-fighter contracts.

By the desk. Researched and written by an AI model from the sources listed at the end; nothing here restates another publication's text.

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What the Pentagon announced

The Department of War announced on Tuesday 29 September a contract awarded by the Navy to Boeing for the F/A-XX, the sixth-generation strike fighter of the Navy's Next Generation Air Dominance program. 'The contract is valued at more than $20B for the full-scale development phase,' the release says, and it 'procures multiple test aircraft for ground, airworthiness, systems, and weapons integration testing.' Boeing is to deliver a jet that will 'augment and eventually replace legacy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and EA-18G Growlers beginning in the 2030s' and fly alongside the F-35C, the Lockheed Martin jet the Navy is buying for its carrier fleet. Reuters put the contract at $20 billion. ^{[1, 6]}

The release quotes Michael P. Duffey, Under Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment, calling the jet 'a crucial, non-negotiable investment in America's national security', and the acting Secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao: 'This achievement marks a new era for the U.S. Navy.' It gives no contract type, no number of aircraft, no work locations and no sum committed at signing, and the award is not in the department's daily list of contract awards for 29 September, where most of the day's other awards carry their contract type, work locations and the money committed. That list does carry a $16,667,607 firm-fixed-price order to Boeing for 'the shutdown of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler production lines', with work in St. Louis, Missouri (60 percent), El Segundo, California (37 percent) and Bethpage, New York (3 percent) until November 2030. ^{[1, 2]}

Boeing called it 'a multi-billion-dollar contract to produce its F/A-XX aircraft' and its 'second selection for 6th-generation fighter work', after the F-47 award from the Air Force in 2025. 'Delivering two advanced fighters in parallel was always our plan, and we invested accordingly,' said Steve Parker, chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, and the company says the 'technical and programmatic details of F/A-XX remain classified'. Northrop Grumman, whose rival offer lost, said it had put forward 'a highly survivable, digitally advanced sixth-generation fighter' and that 'We look forward to receiving additional information about their selection,' Aviation Week reported. ^{[3, 5]}

Cost-plus or fixed-price

Neither the Pentagon's release nor Boeing's says what kind of contract this is, and for Boeing the kind matters. Under a cost-plus contract the government pays the contractor's costs and a fee on top, so an overrun mostly costs the government; under a fixed-price contract the price is set and the contractor absorbs any overrun. Boeing's quarterly report for the three months to 30 June draws the same line: on its cost-type development programs 'the associated financial risks are primarily reduced award or incentive fees, lower profit rates or program cancellation', while 'a number of our ongoing fixed-price development programs have reach-forward losses'. A reach-forward loss is the whole loss a company expects on a contract, recorded as soon as it foresees costs above the price. ^{[1, 3, 4]}

Those losses are in the same report. In the three months to 30 June Boeing added $280 million to the expected loss on the VC-25B, its firm fixed-price contract to develop and modify two 747-8 airliners into Air Force One jets, a $4 billion program, after adding $60 million in 2025; in 2025 it also added $714 million on the KC-46A tanker. It recorded $291 million when it won the fixed-price contract for the Navy's MQ-25 Stingray, an uncrewed refueling aircraft, in 2018, and $400 million when it won the Air Force's T-7A Red Hawk that year, and has recognized more losses on both since. The report does not name the F-47 or the F/A-XX. ^{[4, 5]}

The defense unit, Boeing Defense, Space & Security, had revenue of $7,483 million in the second quarter, against $6,617 million a year earlier, but an operating loss of $15 million, against earnings of $110 million, which Boeing traces mainly to adjustments driven by the VC-25B charge. Its backlog, the value of orders it has yet to fill, was $85,322 million on 30 June, 27 percent of it from customers outside the United States. ^[4]

For its other sixth-generation fighter, the Air Force's F-47, Boeing won a cost-plus contract: an Air Force official told Leeham News in March 2025 that the development contract is 'a cost-plus-incentive-fee award', one in which the fee moves with performance. After Tuesday's award, Roman Schweizer of TD Cowen wrote in a note that investors will want to look closely at how Boeing priced its offer and how the contract is structured, issues that, Breaking Defense noted, have tripped up earlier Boeing programs. ^{[8, 7]}

A long road to the award

The field narrowed early. Lockheed Martin was eliminated in March 2025 'after Navy officials determined its design had not met required criteria, leaving Boeing and Northrop as the finalists', Reuters reported, and Northrop had chosen not to pursue what became the F-47, Breaking Defense reported. Then the program stalled. Some Pentagon officials sought to delay it by up to three years, citing engineering and supply-chain capacity, Reuters reported, and Breaking Defense recalled a 2025 White House statement that effectively argued against funding the F/A-XX to keep the F-47 on track. ^{[6, 7]}

Congress pressed for the award. Its joint explanatory statement on the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026, says the full-year stopgap spending law for 2025 provided $453,828,000 on a schedule that assumed a development award in March 2025, but 'rather than proceeding with a Milestone B award, the Department expended nearly all fiscal year 2025 funding on contract extensions with minimal demonstrated value to the program'. Milestone B is the formal go-ahead for full-scale development. The act added $897,260,000 above the request and directed the Pentagon to use it, with any earlier money, to award the development contract 'limited to one performer' to reach an 'accelerated Initial Operational Capability', the point at which the first jets are ready for service. Senator Eric Schmitt, a Republican, said F/A-XX and F-47 production 'will create more opportunities to attract engineering and technology talent to Missouri', Reuters reported. ^{[9, 6]}

The sums differ by source. In Congress's table the Navy's Next Generation Fighter line, where that increase sits, goes from $74.3 million requested to $971.6 million in the final bill for fiscal 2026; Aviation Week put the bill's F/A-XX money at $972 million. The Pentagon's April budget exhibit counts $940.5 million as enacted for fiscal 2026 plus $750 million under Public Law 119-21, $1.69 billion in all, while Reuters reported $750 million in the 2025 tax-cut and spending law and 'an additional $1.4 billion in fiscal 2026'. For fiscal 2027 the Pentagon asks for $140.6 million: $68.5 million in the regular budget and $72.1 million as mandatory funding, money provided outside the yearly spending bills. Aviation Week reported that the award came shortly before the end of the fiscal year, when funding added for the program was due to expire. ^{[9, 10, 5, 6]}

The jet and the factory

Little else about the jet is public. Neither the Pentagon nor Boeing has said how many the Navy will buy or when the first will fly. Reuters reported that first production jets are expected in the 2030s and that the Super Hornet fleet is expected to keep flying into the 2040s, and quoted the analyst Jeremiah Gertler: 'What we don't know yet is how much F-47 DNA is in the F/A-XX.' The reports do not name the engine maker. Aviation Week reported that the Navy has said the design will use a derivative of an existing fighter engine, not the new adaptive engines the Air Force is developing, and quoted engine maker GE Aerospace: 'We're excited to see this important program advance.' ^{[1, 3, 5, 6]}

Boeing's statement, datelined St. Louis, says construction continues there on its secure manufacturing facility, 'the largest in the U.S.', and Reuters called the award a significant boost for Boeing's fighter operations in St. Louis, which are shutting down the Super Hornet and Growler lines. Gertler told Breaking Defense there may be a personnel challenge at the site: 'They will be trying to execute F/A-XX, F-47, T-7, and a significant planned increase in F-15EX rates all at the same time from the same factory complex.' Reuters noted that the workers who assemble Boeing's fighter jets went on strike for 101 days last year. ^{[3, 6, 7]}

What settles it next

Whether Northrop protests, first. Under the Government Accountability Office's rules, a protest that follows a required debriefing, the meeting where a losing bidder hears the reasons, must be filed within 10 days of it, and the office must decide within 100 days of filing; Breaking Defense reported that Northrop is almost certain to look into a protest, and Schweizer wrote that 'historically protests of major classified aircraft competitions have had a low success rate'. Boeing reports third-quarter results on Tuesday 27 October, its first quarterly results since the award; its last quarterly report said it expects the VC-25B contract terms to be finalized in the third quarter. Then Congress's fiscal 2027 defense bill: the Pentagon has asked for $140.6 million for the program. ^{[11, 7, 12, 4, 10]}

Who it reaches

Boeing directly, as the winner of a development contract the Pentagon values at more than $20 billion and the holder of both services' sixth-generation fighter awards. Northrop Grumman directly, as the losing bidder, which can still challenge the outcome. Lockheed Martin as the bidder eliminated in March 2025 and the maker of the F-35C, which the Pentagon says the F/A-XX will fly alongside; Reuters reported that the Navy still plans to buy more than 270 of them. ^{[1, 3, 5, 6]}

Sources

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