Boeing sweeps both US sixth-gen fighter programs

The Navy handed Boeing more than $20 billion on Tuesday to build the F/A-XX, its carrier-based stealth successor to the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, beating Northrop Grumman in a competition run largely in secret, as Reuters reports. That gives Boeing both major crewed sixth-generation fighter programs in the Pentagon's arsenal, the Navy jet and the Air Force's F-47. Northrop walks away from the fighter business entirely for a generation, a company that built the B-2 and B-21 now locked out of manned combat aircraft until the 2040s at the earliest. The $20 billion covers development and test aircraft only, not production, so the real number, and the real margin risk given Boeing's recent history with fixed-price defense contracts, comes later.