U.S. Navy’s Urgently Needed Sixth Generation Fighter Sees Continued Delays to Award Contract

The Pentagon, White House, and U.S. Congress were reported on May 14 to still be reviewing the U.S. Navy’s&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/lockheed-sixth-generation-fighter-design-rejected-navy">F/A-XX sixth generation fighter&nbsp;</a>program. Considerable delays to a decision to award contracts for development have threatened to force significant changes to the program, at a time when the need for a more capable carrier based fighter class has been perceived with growing urgency. “A decision hasn’t been made yet. That decision is still being determined by [the Pentagon] and service leaders, with conversations among Congress as well. It’s a big program. Obviously these things don’t get settled on by one individual. Leaders are making a decision on whether to invest. It’s all part of the process,” an informed source reported. “While the Navy wants to move forward with awarding a contract, some Pentagon officials are seeking to delay the program by up to three years,” three sources with knowledge of the program informed Reuters, with “concerns about engineering and production capacity” remaining an outstanding issue. Although the Navy was reported on March 25,&nbsp;to be set to&nbsp;announce a contract award for the fighter program’s engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase “this week,” this has yet to materialise almost two months later.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/16/article_6826e6e6436f12_54402783.jpeg" title="Sixth Generation Fighter Concept Art (Lockheed Martin)">Unlike the U.S. Air Force and the Marine Corps which have invested heavily in procuring the respective F-35A and F-35B fifth generation fighters, the U.S. Navy has made only very limited investments in procuring its own variant of the aircraft the F-35C. As a result the vast majority of the service’s fighter fleet is reliant on&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/navy-f18e-jordan-destroy-drones">fourth generation F-18s</a>, which makes the F/A-XX program particularly vital for the service. China’s&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/chinese-sixth-generation-cut-pentagon-demand-f35s-lockheed">unveiling</a>&nbsp;of flight prototypes of two separate sixth generation fighters in December 2024, both of which have been&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/china-sixth-generation-heavyweight-fighter-fourth-flight">intensively flight tested&nbsp;</a>since then, has further increased the perceived need to quickly bring the F/A-XX into the EMD phase.&nbsp;Delaying the award of a contract by three years, Reuters noted, “would effectively cancel the program as it is currently defined…&nbsp;because contracts and pricing would expire during that time making a new competition almost inevitable.” The U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, which was in March revealed to be intended to produce a fighter designated the F-47, saw the primary contract to develop the aircraft announced on March to have been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/boeing-selected-develop-f47-sixth-generation-fighter-turning-point" target="_blank">awarded to Boeing</a>. There has been considerable speculation that an inability to finance the development of two separate sixth generation programs could lead to the Navy being pressed to accept a derivative of the F-47 rather than an entirely separate clean sheet new aircraft.&nbsp;