⚡️⚡️🇺🇸 After a long, fought-out process. It appears through a slew of multiple sources, that the Boeing Corporation has won the bid for the U.S Navy’s 6th Generation air dominance fighter jet project known as “F/A-XX”.

The final 3 boiled down to:
• The Lockheed Martin Corporation (dropped by the Dept of the Navy due to F-35 fulfillment among other things)
• Northrup Grumman (The Pentagon apparently claims they did not want to run the risk of the B-21 or Sentinel program suffering from NG potentially doing the F/A-XX)
• The Boeing Corporation (Approved despite major setbacks with the F-47, KC-46A Pegasus, ongoing production of F-15EX Eagle IIs & F-15 Strike Eagles, + ongoing support for the A-10 Thunderbolt II, C-17 Globemaster III & C-130 fleets).

The F/A-XX program was initially started in 2008, just 2 years after the entry of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the retirement of the F-14A/B/D Tomcat, although initial RFPs weren’t requested until 2012. It is unknown if Boeing plans to utilize the F-47 design for both the USAF & USN’s 6th Generation demands, although it is worth noting that Boeing had been playing the long term with this, having been self-funding their own R&D of a 6th Generation design (initially for the F/A-XX bid) since 2009, with concept art being proposed in 2013 (which would’ve been around the retirement time of majority of the ‘cracked’ developers & designers that remained on staff following the McDonnell-Douglas merger into Boeing in the 1990s/Early 2000s.)

The F/A-XX bid currently is set for a 1:1 replacement scale for the US Navy’s fleet of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets & EA-18 Growler electronic warfare aircrafts, which will be around 503 Super Hornets & 153 Growlers, for a combined total of 662 airframes assuming there is no export of the design.

@Medmannews