Fighter planes versus supply chains

Neither Boeing nor Northrop Grumman will be getting that naval stealth fighter project in the next several years.

Take note how the US Defense Department’s latest budget request prioritizes Boeing’s forthcoming F-47 fighter for the Air Force, but sharply cuts both development funding for the Navy’s FA-XX fighter and previously planned purchases of F-35s. Consider also that the Republican congressional majority has been inert and disinterested in challenging party leader Trump. Then, mostly tellingly, read what that anonymous Pentagon official provided the press as explanation:

We are maintaining a request of $74 million for the FA-XX program in this budget to complete the design of that aircraft. We did make a strategic decision to go all in on F-47… due to our belief that the industrial base can only handle going fast on one program at this time, and the presidential priority to go all in on F-47, and get that program right. [This allows for] maintaining the option for FA-XX in the future.

The emphasis is mine, and I will return to that point below. To elucidate, whatever the indignation over the lost glory days of US industry, I offer two counterpoints.

First, note that industrial mobilization for war does not always go well. The US completely botched its effort for the First World War, sending the US Army into battle largely with French tanks, howitzers, and aircraft. That was all fine equipment, so the problems were ultimately just learnings. The Army’s war planners could have recognized back then that domestic industry was already running flat-out producing inputs for British and French armaments factories. Unemployment in the US was under 5%, and what slack labor existed was more agricultural than industrial.

Next, consider that for the Second World War, ramping up production required years. In the late 1930s, unemployment was around 15%, with lots of specifically slack industrial labor capacity. Today, the fighters are flying frigates — almost that complicated and expensive as warships, which even back then took years to build.

Over the past several years, top managers at every fighter aircraft manufacturer in North America and Europe have told me that the lag time for increasing their production is somewhere between 30 and 42 months. That is, ask now, and the rate can increase in about three years. That’s the degree to which upstream producers are constrained by highly specific physical capital, specialized labor, and established supply chain relationships.

Indeed, Lockheed Martin has spent decades trying to get past 150 F-35s annually, with modest success only recently. The bottleneck has been not at the factory in Fort Worth, but upstream in the supply chain. Small sets of suppliers make of the important inputs across the entire aircraft industry. Thus, prioritizing one type of jet necessarily deprecates the budgetary possibilities of all others.

Instead, the Pentagon’s planners want money today for “significant investment in spares of about a billion dollars to address sustainment and readiness challenges.” Parts supply is also currently constrained, but generally, the smaller and less complicated the part, the quicker the increase in production.

This means that the time horizon on that option for FA-XXs may not be ready to strike for several years. Boeing and Northrop Grumman, in the running for that contract, will now split some tens of millions of dollars to wrap up some design work. Obtaining naval stealth fighters sooner means F-35Bs and Cs, and from Lockheed Martin. That could shore up the business, even with its currently troubles. The electronic warfare upgrade is proceeding, even if the new combat software is still not ready. The engine upgrade by RTX’s Pratt & Whitney is not going so well, as critical design review has been pushed back a full year.

For their part, the Marines continue experimenting with the best ways to operate the Navy’s helicopter carriers with F-35B jump-jets. Bigger is better in aircraft carriers if the goal is dropping lots of ordnance ashore, but that is infeasible across the Chinese coast. Simply running air cover around the periphery of the Pacific for widely dispersed naval flotillas can be accomplished other ways, and allies are providing that example too. Of course, the Navy and Marines would also need to remediate their abysmal availability rates with both types of F-35, but that’s what all those spare parts are for.

James M. Hasik PhD

Further Reading

Audrey Decker, “F-35 engine upgrade hits delay, casting doubt on timeline,” Defense One, 18 June 2025.

J. P. Bunyard, “Distributed Maritime Operations Will Demand ‘Lightning Carriers’,” Proceedings of the USNI, June 2020.

Joseph Trevithick, “Pentagon “All In” On Air Force’s F-47, Puts Navy’s F/A-XX On Ice,” The War Zone, 27 June 2025.

Kyle Gunn, “Lightning Carriers: The Marines’ secret weapon in the Pacific,” Task & Purpose, 26 June 2025.

Kyle Mizokami, “Pocket Air Power: U.S. Allies Lead the Charge on 21st-Century Light Carriers,” Proceedings of the USNI, March 2021.

Mallory Shelbourne & Sam LaGrone, “FY 2026 Budget: Future of F/A-XX, Frigate Unclear; $47.2B Shipbuilding Budget Split Between Base Request, Reconciliation,” USNI News, 26 June 2025.

Norman Polmar, “A Case for Light Carriers,” Proceedings of the USNI, March 2021

Talbot Manvel, “Aircraft Carriers: Bigger Is Better,” Proceedings of the USNI, September 2020.

Wayne Hughes, “Restore a Distributable Naval Air Force,” Proceedings of the USNI, April 2019.