Navy ‘looking forward’ to F/A-XX builder decision, air boss says

[rangerrebew]

Navy ‘looking forward’ to F/A-XX builder decision, air boss says
A naval sixth-gen fighter wasn’t going to happen this year, but Congress offers a lifeline.
Audrey Decker | August 26, 2025 11:51 AM ET
Navy Industry Pentagon Congress
   
The Navy is waiting for Pentagon leaders to pick a company to build the service’s sixth-generation F/A-XX fighter jet, now that Congress moved to restore funding, according to the service’s air boss.

“It's going to be a very exciting aircraft. I'm looking forward to the downselect. I'll leave it to the professional acquisition folks…but I'm looking forward to that because that sixth-generation means air superiority in that timeframe in the future, which means sea control. And as long as you have air superiority, you have sea control around the globe,” Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever, commander of Naval Air Forces, said today during a CSIS event.

In March, the Navy was reportedly close to picking a company to build F/A-XX, but an announcement never came, and the service ended up gutting funding for the aircraft in its 2026 budget request, throwing the program into limbo.

But Congress is on track to reverse those cuts: Senate appropriators added $1.4 billion to F/A-XX in their draft defense spending bill and House appropriators added $972 million to their version. Cheever’s comments today appear to confirm that F/A-XX is in fact moving ahead.

https://www.defenseone.com/defense-systems/2025/08/navy-looking-forward-f-xx-builder-decision-air-boss-says/407687/?oref=d1-featured-river-top

[MeganC]

Rumors on You Tube is an updated version of the F-23. Could be hopium. I guess we will see.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Why does it have to be only one contractor?

Splitting the work among multiple contractors may help keep costs down and improve fulfillment timeliness.

Make them compete to keep the allotment they get and compete to get more allotment from an under-performing contractor.

We don't want another F-35 debacle.

[Timber Rattler]

Why does it have to be only one contractor?

Splitting the work among multiple contractors may help keep costs down and improve fulfillment timeliness.

Make them compete to keep the allotment they get and compete to get more allotment from an under-performing contractor.

We don't want another F-35 debacle.

There aren't any multiple contractors left.  Here's why:

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/03/01/the-last-supper-how-a-1993-pentagon-dinner-reshaped-the-defense-industry

https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2024/02/20/the-pentagon-wants-industry-to-transform-again-to-meet-demand-can-it/

Within a decade, the number of large prime contractors plummeted from 51 to five, creating the modern defense industry. Lockheed merged with Martin. Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas.

“Sitting there at the Last Supper, I felt like I was sitting in a historical pivot point,” Augustine told Defense News. “They did the best [with] a bad hand, and we’re now paying the price for the bad hand.”

(snip)

America needed a defense industry built for peacetime. So arrived the Last Supper, a name Augustine himself gave the 1993 dinner. Even at the time, he said, it appeared to be sound policy. Defense spending was bound to fall, leaving the Pentagon with two choices: a sprawling industry versus a smaller, more efficient one.

Defense officials encouraged the latter. Alongside the plummet of prime contractors, the number of mid-tier and small suppliers also cratered as companies merged in order to lower costs.

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