The F-47 has not flown yet, but the US Air Force already knows where it wants to prove the jet is ready for war, and how much it is willing to spend on the buildings. A presolicitation notice posted in late October lays out an "F-47 Future Campus" at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, with an estimated total cost of $1.057 billion.

The notice, first reported by Aviation Week on 23 October and followed by Air & Space Forces Magazine and The Aviationist, seeks up to four firms to design and build the complex. It is the clearest picture yet of how the service plans to bring its sixth-generation fighter from the factory to the front line.

What the Air Force wants built

The centrepiece is a combined operations and maintenance hangar of roughly 117,000 square feet. Around it sit a simulator building of about 41,000 square feet, a mission-systems reprogramming laboratory and an aircraft apron of about 1.15 million square feet covered with sunshades, a familiar sight at Nellis, where summer ramp temperatures punish both jets and crews.

The schedule is long. The Air Force plans an initial award in February 2027, followed by about nine months of design and preconstruction and roughly 40 months of construction, ending in early March 2031. A possible second phase running to 2032 could add a fuel cell hangar, a low-observable corrosion control hangar for stealth-coating work, a weapons-load training hangar and further maintenance and training buildings, though none of those is confirmed as funded.

Why Nellis

The Air Force's fiscal 2027 budget request, which asked for $730 million for F-47 hangars and support infrastructure, named Nellis as the home of F-47 operational testing. It is an obvious choice. Nellis hosts the US Air Force Weapons School, the Red Flag exercises and the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, and it sits next to the vast Nevada Test and Training Range. Developmental testing after first flight is widely expected to happen at Edwards Air Force Base, as with previous fighters.

Where the F-47 will eventually be based operationally is a separate question that the service has not answered. A report to Congress cited by Aviation Week shows only two F-22 squadrons in Alaska transitioning by 2035, with their future missions still to be determined.

The F-47 so far

Boeing won the Next Generation Air Dominance engineering and manufacturing development contract on 21 March 2025, beating Lockheed Martin, and President Trump announced the F-47 designation in the Oval Office. The jet will replace the F-22 Raptor in the 2030s and is meant to fight alongside semi-autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

“Despite what our adversaries claim, the F-47 is truly the world's first crewed sixth-generation fighter.”

Gen. David W. Allvin — then Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, 21 March 2025

The Air Force has published only a handful of performance goals: a combat radius of more than 1,000 nautical miles, a top speed above Mach 2 and a planned buy of at least 185 aircraft. Engine count, seating and most other details remain classified. In September 2025 Allvin said manufacturing of the first aircraft had begun, and officials have stuck to a 2028 first flight.

Everything publicly known about the F-47 (Megaprojects).

A billion-dollar test campus does not make an aircraft fly sooner. What it does is show that the Air Force is spending real money on the assumption that the F-47 arrives roughly on time, and that when it does, Nevada will be where it learns to fight.

Sandboxx on the start of F-47 production in 2025.

CNN coverage of the F-47 announcement in March 2025, with expert reaction.

Sources: Air & Space Forces Magazine, Aviation Week, The Aviationist, Army Recognition, Defense News, Breaking Defense