Key Points and Summary – Boeing has unveiled a new conceptual rendering of its F/A-XX sixth-generation naval fighter, revealed at the recent Tailhook Symposium.
-The stealthy, tailless design shares some similarities with Boeing’s F-47 concept for the Air Force.
-The reveal comes as the F/A-XX program, once stalled in favor of the F-47, has been resurrected with a new possible surge of funding from Congress.
-Top Navy officials are now eagerly awaiting the selection of a prime contractor, with Boeing and Northrop Grumman as the final contenders to build the service’s next-generation carrier aircraft.
New F/A-XX Photo from Boeing Emerges
WARSAW, POLAND – On 28 August 28 the US publication Aviation Week published images of Boeing’s latest artist’s rendering of its proposal for the US Navy’s F/A-XX program.
The image was unveiled at the August 2025 Tailhook Symposium.
Its revelation – combined with other statements made and actions by the US Congress – has piqued interest in the future of the US Navy’s 6th-generation fighter program.
The image purports to show a carrier-based fighter, but a significant portion of the aircraft is obscured by cloud cover and is not visible.
This kind of occlusion is purposeful in that it obscures the critical details of any design concept, which is particularly important for a stealthy one.
F/A-XX: Stealth Matters
“One of the important aspects of aircraft of the type that are typical of 5th and 6th-generation designs and are supposed to be stealthy is that there be no platform misalignments, particularly in the horizontal control surfaces,” said a retired senior US aircraft design engineer familiar with stealth design techniques.
For that reason, among others, what has been shown of the Boeing design concept conceals features like canards and wingtips, as well as any details in the control surfaces themselves.
As with most other next-generation design concepts proposed today, this graphic also lacks a vertical tail.
While this latest rendering does not clearly show this detail, previous Boeing concepts for the US Navy program clearly showed no vertical tail.
Parallel Details With F-47 and Northrop’s Concept
Of the few details that could be seen, one is the cockpit, which appears to be similar to the Boeing F-47 design for the Air Force program.
But the radome on this F/A-XX appears to – depending on which commentator – “smaller” or “narrower” than the F-47 design.
The nose section is thought to blend into canards further aft, but there is not enough detail in the artwork shown to be able to make a conclusion.
The showing of the Boeing concept comes in the wake of the other major prime bidder, Northrop Grumman, releasing its own images.
F/A-XX Handout Photo from Northrop Grumman.
In contrast with the Boeing artwork, the NG concept (some say resembles the YF-23 Black Widow II) for F/A-XX reveals much more of the aircraft’s frontal hemisphere.
This design appears to feature a larger nose, designed for a large radar aperture, which would be consistent with the need for the aircraft to have a very long detection and interception range.
There is also a bubble canopy, which would appear to be a single-seat aircraft. This is a surprise given that the Navy has a history of two-seat carrier fighters that divide the workload between the pilot and a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) or Weapons System Officer (WSO).
The aircraft also features a twin-wheel nose landing gear, designed to absorb the loads and sink rates associated with carrier launches and recoveries.
There is also a top-mounted air intake on the fuselage spine, which is again designed for a stealthy radar signature. One of the objectives of low observable design is to make sure there is no direct line of sight from the air intake to the engine’s fan frame.
New Design Facilities
Potentially assuaging concerns in some quarters that US industry lacks the facilities to design and build both the F-47 and F/A-XX in parallel, Boeing has invested approximately $2 billion in new “air dominance facilities” at its fighter design center and production line in St. Louis.
For its part, Boeing has posited that its new industrial strategy can adequately support the development and production of both the Air Force’s F-47 and the Navy’s F/A-XX without overloading its design and production teams. The company has also reminded different defense and aerospace outlets that it has long experience with the F/A-XX program.
Boeing states that the original concept development work done on the F/A-XX dates back to a Navy requirement identified in 2008.
A formal request for information was issued in 2012, and the Boeing F/A-XX studies have since been developed under the rubric of a crewed fighter component of the Navy’s Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems.
The company’s proposal is for an aircraft that would replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler in the 2030s, providing a complement to the F-35C.
It is still unclear, however, how a single-seat fighter can perform the Growler and two-seat Super Hornet missions, if that is indeed the configuration of the Boeing-proposed design.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
More Military
J-20 vs. F-35I Adir: Which Fighter Would Win?
The Boeing F-47 Fighter Has a Serious Problem
