U.S. Navy Selects Boeing F/A-XX Sixth-Generation Fighter to Replace F/A-18 Super Hornet.

The U.S. Navy has selected Boeing to develop the F/A-XX sixth-generation carrier fighter, launching a new combat aircraft program intended to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet in the 2030s while extending the range, survivability, and striking power of future carrier air wings in heavily contested airspace.

Announced on September 29, 2026, the award moves F/A-XX into full-scale development under a contract valued at more than $20 billion. The aircraft is expected to give U.S. carriers greater operational reach, employ future long-range weapons, and operate as part of a networked force that includes crewed fighters and collaborative unmanned aircraft. Boeing’s selection also gives the company responsibility for both U.S. sixth-generation crewed fighter programs following its 2025 win for the Air Force’s F-47.

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F/A-XX is the U.S. Navy’s planned sixth-generation carrier-based fighter, designed to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet with greater range, survivability, advanced mission systems, and integration with uncrewed combat aircraft. (Picture source: Boeing)

For the U.S. Navy, F/A-XX is intended to address one of the central challenges facing future carrier operations: maintaining effective strike and air-combat reach while aircraft carriers operate against increasingly long-range surveillance networks, surface-to-air missiles, and anti-ship weapons. Boeing says the fighter will introduce an open mission systems architecture, advanced mission systems, and increased operational reach and capacity, although the aircraft’s detailed performance remains classified. The Navy is expected to begin replacing the Super Hornet with F/A-XX aircraft during the 2030s, making the new fighter a central element of the future carrier air wing alongside the F-35C and increasingly capable uncrewed aircraft.

Greater range is expected to be a defining characteristic of the F/A-XX. Extending the distance at which carrier fighters can operate would let a carrier strike group launch air-defense, escort, and strike missions while staying farther from the most heavily defended maritime areas. This is particularly important in the Indo-Pacific, where distances between operating areas are much greater than in many previous U.S. naval campaigns. A fighter able to conduct missions at a greater radius would also reduce some dependence on aerial refueling, while the Navy’s MQ-25A Stingray unmanned tanker is separately being developed to extend the reach of the carrier air wing.

F/A-XX is also being developed as more than a conventional replacement for the Super Hornet. Its open architecture is intended to allow new sensors, weapons, electronic warfare capabilities, and software to be incorporated more rapidly as threats evolve, while future networking is expected to connect the fighter with other crewed and uncrewed aircraft. This could enable an F/A-XX pilot to operate as part of a distributed combat formation in which autonomous aircraft expand sensor coverage, carry additional weapons or perform higher-risk missions ahead of the crewed fighter. The precise configuration of these capabilities remains classified, and neither Boeing nor the Navy has publicly disclosed the aircraft’s radar characteristics, weapons capacity, propulsion system, maximum speed, combat radius, or signature-reduction performance.

The U.S. Navy's selection is also significant because the F/A-XX must meet requirements fundamentally different from those of the Air Force’s F-47. The Navy fighter will have to withstand repeated catapult launches, arrested landings, maritime corrosion and the demanding maintenance environment aboard an aircraft carrier while still providing the range, low observability, sensor performance and weapons capability expected from a sixth-generation combat aircraft. F/A-XX and F-47 are therefore separate designs even though Boeing now leads both programs. Boeing Defense, Space & Security President and CEO Steve Parker said the company had planned to deliver two advanced fighters in parallel and had invested its industrial capacity accordingly.

That industrial capacity is increasingly concentrated around Boeing’s defense operations in St. Louis, Missouri, where the company is building a major secure manufacturing facility intended to support next-generation combat aircraft production. Boeing says the site is part of an increasingly digital development and manufacturing system and that it has also invested in engineering, technology, and personnel. These preparations are now particularly important because Boeing must sustain development of F/A-XX while executing the F-47 program, an industrial challenge the Pentagon already highlighted during fiscal 2026 budget discussions, when defense officials questioned whether the U.S. aerospace industrial base could rapidly advance both fighter programs at the same time.

The F/A-XX award follows a prolonged competition in which Boeing and Northrop Grumman emerged as the principal remaining contenders. The decision gives Boeing another major fighter development program after the Air Force selected the company for F-47 in March 2025, strengthening its position in U.S. tactical aviation after decades in which Lockheed Martin’s F-35 dominated American stealth fighter production. The Navy’s decision does not mean F/A-XX is close to operational service, however. The aircraft must still progress through engineering development, flight testing, carrier-suitability trials, mission-system integration, weapons testing, and production preparation before it can begin replacing Super Hornets in frontline carrier air wings over the next decade.

Operationally, the F/A-XX matters for its combination of reach, survivability, adaptable mission systems, and integration with future uncrewed combat aircraft, not simply for replacing an older fighter. The Super Hornet remains the backbone of U.S. carrier aviation, but the threat environment expected in the 2030s will require carrier air wings to detect targets, exchange information, and employ weapons across much larger distances while facing increasingly sophisticated air defenses and long-range maritime strike systems. If the U.S. Navy and Boeing can translate the still-classified F/A-XX design into those operational capabilities, the fighter will become a key element in determining how effectively U.S. aircraft carriers can continue projecting combat air power against highly defended opponents.

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Written by Alain Servaes – Chief Editor, Army Recognition Group
Alain Servaes is a former infantry non-commissioned officer and the founder of Army Recognition. With over 20 years in defense journalism, he provides expert analysis on military equipment, NATO operations, and the global defense industry.