{ "archive_path": "archive/1790719621.943294", "base_url": "www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general", "basename": "full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general", "bookmarked_date": "2026-09-29 22:07", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.twz.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general.html" }, "domain": "www.twz.com", "extension": "", "hash": "FTFNHT7HKYANBX9RKKHA", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.twz.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:27.221992+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790719621.943294", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:26.820775+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:27.677283+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790719621.943294", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:27.227808+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-09-30T01:20:05.473719+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790719621.943294", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-30T01:20:01.677780+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpv8ejysi3", "https://www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-09-30T01:20:01.663777+00:00", "index_texts": [ "A top U.S. Air Force acquisition officer says work to set up a full production line for the F-47 sixth-generation fighter is getting closer and closer on the horizon. Prime contractor Boeing is in the midst of a nearly $2 billion expansion to its facilities in St. Louis, Missouri. The F-47 program otherwise continues to progress along an aggressive schedule, with a first flight still being targeted for 2028 and the goal of production jets entering operational service in the early 2030s.\n\n\n\nAir Force Brig. Gen. Timothy Helfrich, the service\u2019s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft, provided an update on the F-47 program during a virtual talk hosted by the Air & Space Forces Association\u2019s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies yesterday. Boeing won the Air Force competition to produce the F-47 in March 2023, and at least one pre-production example is being built now. The Air Force\u2019s stated plan now is to acquire at least 185 of these jets. \n\n\n\n\u201cWe have an imperative, I would call it a strategic asset, which is fighter production capacity,\u201d Helfrich said during his opening remarks. \u201cWe only have so many production lines, and so we have to get the very most out of those that we can while planning for CCA [Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone] production, and pretty soon F-47 production.\u201d\n\n\n\nA rendering of the F-47 sixth-generation fighter. USAF \n\n\n\n\u201cThere are only three active fighter production lines, right? We got F-35 down in Fort Worth, the F-15EX in St. Louis, and F-16 in Greenville,\u201d Helfrich elaborated later on in the discussion in response to a question about steps the Air Force is taking to maintain sufficient operational capacity across its fighter fleets, in general. \u201cSo we need to grow the existing production lines, and we need to \u2013 or at least maximize what we can get out of those existing production lines, and we need to add production lines.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re not too far away from an F-47 production line, which will be additive to the production capacity,\u201d he added.\n\n\n\nSince 2023, Boeing has been working to substantially expand its production and other facilities in St. Louis by more than one million square feet. The company has repeatedly shied away from explicitly linking the $1.8 billion construction project to the F-47 program, but there have been clear signs of a connection for years now. \n\n\n\nAn undated aerial view of work to expand Boeing\u2019s facilities in St. Louis. PARIC Corporation \n\n\n\n\u201cThe project\u2019s first phase includes plans to erect and renovate 1.1 million ft.2 of facilities on the 110-acre Brownleigh and 75-acre Northern tracts adjacent to St. Louis Lambert International Airport, according to planning documents released by the airport authority in 2023,\u201d Aviation Week reported in 2025. \u201cPhase 1 includes the construction of a 880,000-ft.2 aircraft assembly building on the Brownleigh [site], plus a 185,000-ft.2 hangar, 80,000-ft.2 radar cross-section test facility, open aircraft shelters, hush house, maintenance building, fuel calibration building and fire house totaling 90,000 ft.2 on the Northern tract.\u201d\n\n\n\nAt that time, parts of the new facility were reportedly expected to open in 2026 ahead of the completion of the full project in 2030. \n\n\n\nA post across Boeing\u2019s social media accounts in July highlighted continued progress with this construction. This included the completion of roof and exterior panels and the installation of hangar doors at a section of the site dedicated to \u201cAdvanced Combat Aircraft Assembly,\u201d as well as the \u201cfirst steel column installed for the Central Utility Plan\u201d in the North Tract area.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProgress you can see. Built for what's next.Momentum continues on our St. Louis expansion:\u2705 Advanced Combat Aircraft Assembly: roof and exterior panels complete, hangar doors installed\u2705 North Tract: first steel column installed for the Central Utility PlantFueling future\u2026 pic.twitter.com/281prUMMCV\u2014 Boeing Defense (@BoeingDefense) July 6, 2026\n\n\n\n\n\n\u201cMomentum continues on our St. Louis expansion,\u201d Dan Gillian, Vice President and General Manager of Air Dominance at Boeing, also said in July, according to Flight Global. \u201cWe are expanding our defence footprint while supporting next-generation capabilities.\u201d \n\n\n\nAll of this is in line with Brig. Gen. Helfrich\u2019s comments yesterday about a full production line for the F-47 steadily taking shape now. This, in turn, fits squarely with the aforementioned aggressive timeline the Air Force is pursuing for the program overall. Accelerated work on the F-47 has been aided by years of flight testing in secret of advanced demonstrator aircraft. \n\n\n\nThere is also a question of whether Boeing\u2019s expansion of its production capacity in St. Louis could also be tied to the Navy\u2019s F/A-XX next-generation carrier-based fighter program. Boeing has been facing off against Northrop Grumman in the F/A-XX competition with a design that looks related, at least to some degree, to the F-47. \n\n\n\nA rendering of Boeing\u2019s proposed F/A-XX design. Boeing \n\n\n\nThe F-47 and F/A-XX programs have become very closely intertwined in other ways. In 2025, the Pentagon moved to freeze F/A-XX, explicitly over concerns about competition for industrial base resources with F-47. This would include production line capacity. Congress subsequently intervened to keep the Navy effort going, but a final winner still has yet to be announced. \n\n\n\nJust earlier this month, Air Force Gen. Dale White, the service\u2019s Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Critical Major Weapon Systems, reiterated concerns about industrial capacity. White\u2019s comments came in response to a question about potential challenges in building F/A-XXs at the same time as F-47s at a media roundtable at the Air & Space Forces\u2019 Air, Space and Cyber Conference at which TWZ was in attendance. The general also acknowledged that these concerns were \u201cnot unique\u201d to F/A-XX and F-47.\n\n\n\nDuring the virtual talk yesterday, Brig. Gen. Helfrich otherwise touted continued progress on the F-47 program.\n\n\n\n\u201cThe F-47 is going to be the world\u2019s first sixth-generation fighter, and I can\u2019t wait to fly it [sic; see it fly] this administration,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a commitment that I made, that we are on track to do.\u201d\n\n\n\nThe \u201cadministration\u201d referred to here is President Donald Trump\u2019s second term in office, which will come to a close in January 2029. With this deadline in mind, the Air Force has openly said in the past that it is aiming for a first flight of the F-47 in 2028. Beyond that, the stated goal is to be operating the jets operationally sometime in the early 2030s. \n\n\n\nAs noted, the Air Force has said previously that it is planning to acquire a fleet of at least 185 F-47s, which is in line with the original vision of the aircraft as a direct successor to the F-22 Raptor. However, there have already been signs that the final F-47 fleet figure could grow amid an evolving view of the F-22\u2019s continued role in the near-term. A huge, multi-faceted modernization effort for the F-22 fleet is now underway, as you can read more about here.\n\n\n\nA stock picture of a US Air Force F-22 Raptor. USAF \n\n\n\nWhen the jets do enter service, \u201cone of the things that we know F-47 is going to bring is more survivability and lethality than anything that\u2019s ever been delivered before. And going into that highly contested environment, you have to meet certain levels of survivability if you want to execute there,\u201d Helfrich noted yesterday. \u201cBeyond just the survivability and lethality that we know is going to come, there\u2019s also an adaptability that the F-47 will bring.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cThe F-47 will come out of the box with full open architecture,\u201d he continued. \u201cAmongst other great things, it brings the ability to upgrade rapidly, faster than the threat if needed. That is what is going to be required in that kind of environment. Other things it\u2019s going to bring, it\u2019s going to be much more survivable than our fifth-gen platforms, as well as have a combat radius of over 1,000 nautical miles, which you\u2019re familiar with. That\u2019s a long way, which is needed for that kind of environment. You need to be able to execute and persist there.\u201d\n\n\n\n\u201cEspecially in these highly contested environments, no one\u2019s going to be fighting alone. So we need to make sure that we are integrating,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s some ability to get lift from one platform to another, right? Whether it\u2019s a mission system, it\u2019s communications, it\u2019s open architectures, we\u2019re seeing that integration pay dividends, so that we are integrated from day one.\u201d\n\n\n\nThis kind of integration and cross-platform commonality in mission systems will be particularly relevant for F-47s acting as airborne controllers for CCA drones. Brig. Gen. Helfrich\u2019s comments above also came in the midst of a discussion about future operations involving both F-47s and B-21 Raider bombers.\n\n\n\nMany questions do still remain about plans for the F-47 and its design, including what engines will power the aircraft when it first enters service. In July, TWZ published a deep-dive feature about what is known about the aircraft to date, which you can find here.\n\n\n\nIn the meantime, the Air Force and Boeing are continuing to push ahead with laying the groundwork for full production of the F-47 as the jet gets closer to its first flight in the coming years.\n\n\n\nContact the author: joe@twz.com" ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790719621.943294", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:59.519389+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:59.512139+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "Full F-47 Production Line \"Not Too Far Away\": USAF General", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790719621.943294", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:59.459397+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:59.450048+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790719621.943294", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-09-30T01:19:27.685932+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "Full F-47 Production Line \"Not Too Far Away\": USAF General", "warc": null, "wget": "www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1790719621.943294", "newest_archive_date": "2026-09-30T01:20:01.677780+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-09-30T01:19:26.820775+00:00", "path": "/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "36ed8da8-f4a7-43b3-809b-a177122136d4", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1790719621-import.txt" ], "tags": ",escalation,war-wiki,pool", "tags_str": "escalation,war-wiki,pool", "timestamp": "1790719621.943294", "title": "Full F-47 Production Line \"Not Too Far Away\": USAF General", "updated": "2026-09-30T01:19:26.820595+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-09-30 01:19", "url": "https://www.twz.com/air/full-f-47-production-line-not-too-far-away-usaf-general" }