Congress Moves To Save Gutted F/A-XX 6th Generation Naval Fighter Program
The version of the 2026 Fiscal Year Defense Appropriations Bill that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved today includes $1.4 billion for F/A-XX and $647 million for E-7.
The $1.4 billion figure aligns directly with a call for additional F/A-XX funding that the Navy had reportedly included in its annual Unfunded Priority List (UPL) sent to Congress earlier this month. The UPLs, which all branches of the U.S. armed forces and certain other commands are required to submit each year by law, are intended to outline key funding requests that could not be included in the annual proposed defense budget. However, the current circumstances surrounding F/A-XX are somewhat unusual in that the Navy appears to be in direct conflict with top Pentagon leadership over the fate of the program.
The proposed budget for the 2026 Fiscal Year that the Pentagon rolled out in June includes just enough funding to complete initial development work, but not actually procure any of the jets. U.S. military officials have said that this decision was made to avoid competition for resources with the U.S. Air Force's F-47 sixth-generation fighter program amid concerns that the industrial base in the United States cannot handle work on both efforts simultaneously.
Since then, in addition to the UPL submission, Navy officials have been outspoken about how important they view the F/A-XX as part of their service's future carrier aviation plans.
'Nothing in the Joint Force projects combat power from the sea as a Carrier Strike Group, which at the heart has a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN). To maintain this striking power, the CVN must have an air wing that is comprised of the most advanced strike fighters,' Adm. Daryl Caudle, the current nominee to become the next Chief of Naval Operations, wrote in response to a question about F/A-XX ahead of his confirmation hearing last week. 'Therefore, the ability to maintain air superiority against peer competitors will be put at risk if the Navy is unable to field a 6th Generation strike fighter on a relevant timeline. Without a replacement for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and E/A-18G Growler, the Navy will be forced to retrofit 4th generation aircraft and increase procurement of 5th generation aircraft to attempt to compete with the new 6th generation aircraft that the threat is already flying.'
'The Navy has a validated requirement for carrier-based 6th generation aircraft, and it is critical that we field that capability as quickly as possible to give our warfighters the capabilities they need to win against a myriad of emerging threats,' he added.
Even before the Pentagon's budget rollout, there had been growing signs that the F/A-XX program was at best in limbo, in part due to industrial base concerns. Boeing, the prime contractor for the F-47 and a contender for the F/A-XX contract, notably pushed back on that assertion back in June. Northrop Grumman is understood to be the other company in the running for F/A-XX after Lockheed Martin was reportedly eliminated in March. Lockheed Martin is now aggressively pitching a heavily reworked version of the F-35 as the 'Bridging Fighter' at least for the Air Force ahead of the F-47's arrival.
A fight has also already been brewing over the E-7 program, but primarily between the Pentagon and Congress, at least in public. Since 2023, the Air Force's plan had been to replace a portion of its aging E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft with Wedgetails. This was also intended to serve as a bridge toward larger ambitions to eventually push a significant part of that mission set to distributed satellite constellations in space. Confirmation of the decision to axe E-7 purchases and acquire additional E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft, currently flown by the U.S. Navy, to fill the resulting gap first emerged at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in June. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, pushed back hard on that idea at the time.
'I have been concerned. We have E-3 capability up north, of course, but we were all counting on the E-7 Wedgetail coming our way. We're kind of limping along up north right now, which is unfortunate. And the budget proposes terminating the program,' she said. 'Again, the E-3 fleet [is] barely operational now, and I understand the intent to shift towards the space-based – you call it the 'air moving target indicators' – but my concern is that you've got a situation where you're not going to be able to use more duct tape to hold things together until you put this system in place. And, so, how we maintain that level of operational readiness and coverage, I'm not sure how you make it.'
'I would file this entire discussion under difficult choices that we have to make,' Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during an ensuing exchange with Murkowski. 'But you know, the E-7, in particular, is sort of late, more expensive and 'gold plated,' and so filling the gap, and then shifting to space-based ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] is a portion of how we think we can do it best, considering all the challenges.'
Hegseth had also previously highlighted the E-7 as an example of a capability that is 'not survivable in the modern battlefield' and had said that it would be better 'to fund existing platforms that are there more robustly and make sure they're modernized.' Since it formally kicked off two years ago, the Air Force's Wedgetail program had already been beset by notable delays and cost growth, issues the Pentagon has also said were major factors in the cancellation decision.
Other advocates of the E-7 program, including a significant number of retired senior Air Force officials, have since stepped forward. Earlier this month, 19 retired Air Force generals, including six former Air Force chiefs of staff, signed onto an open letter from the Air & Space Forces Association to Congress 'to express our alarm' at the Wedgetail plan.
On July 11, the House Armed Services Committee released a draft of the separate annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2026 Fiscal Year, which also included $600 million for the 'continuation of rapid prototyping' of the E-7. At that time, the proposed legislation made no changes regarding the F/A-XX plans, but members of the committee subsequently directed the Air Force and the Navy to provide more details on their respective next-generation fighter plans. A separate draft defense spending bill put forward by the House Appropriations Committee also included $972 million for continued work on F/A-XX.
The House and Senate will eventually have to align their respective draft NDAAs and defense appropriation bills before a final vote on either can occur. Funding plans for F/A-XX and E-7 could change again in the course of that process. President Donald Trump will also still need to sign the bills into law.
If nothing else, the Senate Appropriations Committee has now given F/A-XX an important vote of support in the face of the Pentagon's plans to gut the program. It has also joined the growing chorus of calls to push ahead with the Air Force's E-7 effort.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
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