Defence giants battle for the big budget F/A-XX project as China tensions mount
America’s biggest war plane makers are gearing up for a battle to replace the US Navy’s ageing Top Gun fighter jets.
The Navy has confirmed that three of the biggest US defence contractors are in the running for the F/A-XX contract. The winning bidder will lead the project to build the successor to the F/A-18, the fighter jet flown by Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick.
The F/A-XX project is at a relatively early stage with no set budget. However, a lot of cash is likely to be on offer. The last big fighter programme, the US Air Force’s F-22, was estimated to cost $79bn.
The hopefuls for the job are: Boeing, the maker of the war planes featured in the recent Tom Cruise blockbuster; Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35s used by the Royal Navy on its Queen Elizabeth class of aircraft carrier; and Northrop Grumman, maker of the F-14 Tomcats flown in the original 1986 Top Gun, and the B-2 stealth bomber.