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US DoD cuts USAF F-35 fighters from 48 to 24 for FY26
Bloomberg News reports that the US Air Force (USAF) F-35A Lightning IIs are being scaling back by half for Fiscal Year 2026 under request made by the Pentagon to Congress.
According to the report, 24 of the planes, down from 48 that were forecast last year were requested by a US Defense Department procurement request document sent to Capitol Hill this week.
The report added that the USAF is now allocating $3.5 billion for the F-35 along with another $531 million for advance procurement of materials for it.
Instead the Marines would see a reduction of two from this year’s funding while the Navy will receive 12 F-35Cs instead of the 17 Congress approved for this fiscal year, the report added.
In 2024 Lockheed Martin delivered 110 F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters to the US and its allies. According to Reuters, the F-35 program accounts for around 30% of the company’s revenue.
US DoD cuts USAF F-35 fighters for FY26, money saved could be re-invested in F-47
As noted by Military Watch Magazine, the money saved by reducing the F-35 procurements could be re-invested in the F-47. Actually, funding for the US Navy F/A-XX sixth generation fighter could be cut by the US Department of Defence to reallocate funds to the F-47 and reducing F-35 procurements would not only result in significant savings on procurement costs, but would also avoid spending on operational costs.
Noteworthy as China’s first sixth generation fighters (as already reported Beijing unveiled its first two in December 2024) approach their entry into service date, the F-35 effectiveness has increasingly come under question. The F-47 in fact would better suitable for high intensity operations in the Pacific leaving that the F-35. Additionally, the new Chinese sixth generation fighters raised serious concerns regarding America’s future capability to wage an air campaign in the Pacific because the F-35 fleet would be left a generation behind the most capable fighters in the theatre. In fact, the stock price of Lockheed Martin, F-35’s primary contractor, was quickly affected by the unveiling of the new Chinese fighters.
F-47 graphic
As already explained, according to a graphic tweeted by Gen. David Allvin, the USAF chief of staff, on his official account (and featured above) on May 13, the firsts of more than 185 Boeing F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighters could be in service in the 2025-2029 timeframe.
Although the overall shape and most performance of the aircraft remain secret, the graphic confirmed several basic features of the F-47 such as a top speed over Mach 2 and a combat radius greater than 1,000 nm, greater than that of the Lockheed Martin F-35 (670 nm unrefueled mission radius).
Eventually, the graphic highlights the fact the F-47 will be stealthier than the Lockheed Martin F-22 which is listed as “stealth+” whereas the NGAD is “stealth++” (the F-35 is listed as “stealth”).
As already explained, Jim Taiclet, Lockheed Martin’s chief executive, said his company aims at creating a “fifth-generation plus” F-35 that can offer 80 percent of the capability of the F-47 at “half the price:” this is the mandate he laid out to its aeronautics division after the company lost out on the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter program.
As reported by Breaking Defense, in the hopes of enticing the Pentagon with a less expensive alternative to a sixth-generation fighter Lockheed Martin will enhance its F-35 stealth fighter.
He explained;
“We’re basically going to take the [F-35] chassis and turn it into a Ferrari. It’s like a NASCAR upgrade, so to speak, where we would take the F-35 [and] apply some of those co-funded technologies both from NGAD and the F-35 program.”
NGAD contract
He continued;
“My challenge here on my aeronautics team is, let’s get 80 percent of six-gen capability at half the price. And that’s something that — these are engineers, you know, they wouldn’t have agreed to this if they didn’t think there was a path to get there.”
Although according to Taiclet a new advanced passive infrared radar is among the technologies that could be incorporated, he didn’t specify all of the upgrades that could make up the fifth-generation plus F-35.
He said;
“I explained this at a meeting at the White House to the president. Dogfights are not what we want anymore. In air-to-air combat, we want to shoot the other guys, I said, before he even knows we’re there. And you do that, first of all, with the critical sensors to find them. Then you make sure they can’t find you, and that’s the stealth technology. There’s some techniques with that we’ve used for our NGAD offering that can be applied, whether they’re materials, they’re geometries, they’re counter-measures for stealth, so I can’t be seen.”
New weapons and tracking systems to engage the enemy at longer range would be other key elements of the enhanced F-35.
As already reported, President Donald Trump announced the contract award to Boeing on Mar. 21. The contract will lead to the development of the F-47, the world’s first sixth-generation fighter aircraft.
The F-47 represents a significant advancement over the F-22 and F-35, which is currently the US Air Force’s primary air superiority fighter.
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force
