Navy may select next-gen fighter design as soon as this week: Sources

WASHINGTON — The Navy is moving forward with its F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter program, with a winner potentially announced as soon as this week, two sources told Breaking Defense.

Northrop Grumman and Boeing are competing for the right to design and build an aircraft that will ultimately replace the F/A-18 Super Hornets and E/A-18 Growlers. The next-gen fighter would also complement Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and a to-be-determined Collaborative Combat Aircraft in the service’s future air wing.

Reuters first reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved plans on Friday for the Navy to advance its ongoing competition. When contacted by Breaking Defense, a spokesperson for the Navy deferred to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A spokesperson for OSD did not return a request for comment by press time.

The competition for F/A-XX, one of the most highly anticipated Navy contract awards outside its shipbuilding portfolio, has been at the center of ongoing disputes between various corners of the White House, Pentagon and Congress ever since the Air Force in March selected Boeing as the prime contractor for its future fighter, the F-47.

The two sources told Breaking Defense that an announcement on the fighter contract was rumored to come as early as this past weekend, when President Donald Trump celebrated the Navy’s 250th birthday in Norfolk, Va. Trump was joined by Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, who himself was donning a flight suit, in embarking the aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush to observe flight operations.

For Boeing, winning the Navy contract would mean cementing its status as the Pentagon’s strike fighter contractor of choice for its sixth-generation jets, icing out both Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman from either the Air Force or Navy Next Generation Air Dominance programs. It would also be a remarkable turnaround for its defense business, which in the last 25 years lost two key combat aircraft contracts in the Joint Strike Fighter and Air Force’s Long Range Strike Bomber programs, while facing billions in losses on fixed-price development programs.

Meanwhile, if Northrop Grumman were to win F/A-XX, it would return the company to prime contractor status on an American strike fighter for the first time since the F-14 Tomcat, the jet made famous in Top Gun.

Lockheed Martin, which was once competing for the F/A-XX contract, was previously knocked out of the competition after submitting a bid that didn’t meet the service’s criteria, Breaking Defense first reported in March.