Key Points and Summary – A new piece of concept art from Northrop Grumman provides a speculative glimpse of its bid for the U.S. Navy’s F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter.
-The rendered image showcases a stealthy design with a surprisingly-chosen single-pilot cockpit.
-While some commentators note similarities to the 1990s YF-23 prototype, the artwork is highly provisional and not a final design.
-The release serves as a reminder that the high-stakes competition between Northrop Grumman and Boeing to build the Navy’s future carrier jet is still very much active, with Northrop leveraging its deep stealth aircraft experience.
F/A-XX from YF-23?
Northrop Grumman released a digitally rendered image of their prototype F/A-XX fighter last month, and while the image reveals very little about the aircraft, it is a reminder that the competition to build the United States Navy’s next carrier-capable fighter jet is not yet over.
F/A-XX
The F/A-XX is the provisional moniker for the United States Navy’s sixth-generation fighter jet, which would replace the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornets sometime in the next decade.
The search for that jet was prompted by the Navy’s Next Generation Air Dominance program, a family of systems that aims to increase survivability, extend range, and ensure lethality even in highly contested aerial environments.
In essence, the NGAD program and Northrop’s F/A-XX seeks to deliver a carrier-capable multirole stealth aircraft to the United States Navy. To that end, the F/A-XX is anticipated to be very stealthy, with a greater unfurled range and higher payload capacity than the Super Hornets it would replace, while also having the ability to operate alongside and with unmanned platforms.
Flying the jet without a human pilot, as well as open-architecture avionics and the ability to incorporate new technologies in the future, like directed-energy or laser weapons, is anticipated. Both Northrop Grumman and Boeing are still in the running for the F/A-XX program following Lockheed Martin’s elimination from the program earlier this year.
The Artwork
The single image of Northrop’s F/A-XX concept aircraft clearly shows, as anticipated, a stealth-forward design replete with blended surfaces, a prominent chine, and other features typical of stealthy aircraft.
As the F/A-XX would be a U.S. Navy fighter, the jet’s reinforced nose gear, essential for the stress and rigor of carrier-based operations, is visible.
One of the more intriguing aspects of Northrop’s provisional F/A-XX design is what appears to be a single-pilot cockpit. If this cockpit is retained in the final design, it would be an intriguing choice. Given the anticipated complexities of operations involving unmanned and semi-autonomous Loyal Wingmen-type drones, having a second pilot in the F/A-XX and in-the-loop was assumed to be an advantage, so a single-pilot decision is somewhat surprising.
It is worth noting that releasing digital concept art is a far, far cry from revealing the upcoming F/A-XX fighter outright. Much of the fighter is unseen out of frame. The landing gear is obscured by both heavy shadowing and text overlaid on top of the image. The three-quarters view of the fighter does not reveal more than the airplane’s canopy and the forward fuselage section, which features an engine air intake. Other than those features, few stark facts stick out — and what little does should be taken as a provisional placeholder rather than the jet’s final design.
Some commentators have drawn parallels between the rendering and an earlier Northrop prototype aircraft, the YF-23 Black Widow II, an aircraft the firm entered into the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Tactical Fighter program. The company’s entry ultimately lost to what would become the F-22 Raptor fighter.
YF-23A Black Widow II on Display at Museum. Image Taken by National Security Journal on August 19, 2025.
YF-23 Black Widow II Fighter In California. Image Credit: Harry J. Kazianis/National Security Journal.
But similarities between the YF-23 and the provisional F/A-XX artwork might be nothing more than a coincidence, as a number of fifth and sixth-generation features are common across stealth aircraft designs.
The engine air intake on Northrop’s F/A-XX concept artwork is notable for its top, rather than underslung, positioning. While this would increase the jet’s stealth properties by hiding air intakes, typically a source of radar bounce-back, from adversary radar, the air intake in the image appears to be much too small to realistically feed a high-performance jet engine, indicating the image’s provisional nature.
Northrop Grumman
Northrop has extensive experience building stealth aircraft. Beginning with the B-2 Spirit bomber, a flying-wing strategic bomber and the world’s first fifth-generation bomber, a Cold War-era design whose acquisition was greatly truncated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent drawdown of defense budgets, the firm is also prototyping and testing the B-21 Raider bomber. That platform is touted by Northrop as the world’s first sixth-generation bomber. And rather than incorporating a raft of high-risk and new technologies, the company opted instead for an iterative design that builds upon the B-2 Spirit.
Although Boeing is still in the running to build the F/A-XX fighter for the Navy, the company recently won the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, which yielded the F-47 air superiority fighter for the United States Air Force. While that does not torpedo the firm’s chances for the Navy’s next-generation carrier-capable fighter, building two different sixth-generation aircraft on schedule and at budget could be a steep challenge for any one firm.
And with progress on the B-21 Raider seemingly well underway, Northrop Grumman could be well-positioned to win the award.
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.
More Military
Step Aboard USS Iowa: The Iowa-Class Battleship That ‘Could’ Fight Again
The YF-23 Black Widow II: Better Than the F-22 Raptor?
The A-12 Avenger II Stealth Bomber: What Navy Aircraft Carriers Almost Had
America’s Big Boeing X-32 Stealth Fighter Mistake Still Stings
Psilaxs
September 8, 2025 at 3:11 pm
That is a LOT of words to say the design is provisional, we don’t know anything yet and that Northrop is still waiting on a contract for a program that hasn’t been approved yet.