The Pentagon lies so frequently that it often forgets it did and then admits it inadvertently. 

In recent years, the arms race to build the latest and most capable weapons has been accelerated by the deteriorating global security underlying the U.S.-NATO military agenda. 

Multipolar powers are particularly focused on developing the latest weapon systems that no one else can match.

For instance, Russia continues its well over half-a-century-old dominance in missile technologies, while China is now flight testing several next-generation aircraft prototypes. In the meantime, the USAF just announced that it will fly its own first prototype… …in three years.

Namely, US Air Force Chief of Staff General David Allvin told Fox News that they are “excited” about new programs, such as the B-21 strategic stealth bomber that’s supposed to replace the aging B-2 that was recently used in the failed US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, The failure of the B-2 operation is amply documented. According to the USAF “It’s 1990 technology”. 

Also USAF refers to the latest F-47, part of the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) project that’s supposed to lead to the replacement of the F-22 “Raptor”.

General Allvin pointed out that “it was a great day this spring when President Trump announced that we’re going forward with the F-47”, adding that Boeing, which won the contract to build the new fighter, is now “very far along” in the so-called “risk reduction phase, learning all the brand new technology, new concepts and manufacturing methods”, and that he also “hope[s] to have one flying within the next three years”.

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So, you’re probably asking yourself what exactly is so controversial about all this.

Well, it’s the simple fact that the USAF already bragged about supposedly “flying” its first NGAD prototype over half a decade ago.

Has the F-47 Already Been Flying?

“Trump also revealed that an experimental version of the F-47 has secretly been flying for almost five years”.

Namely, according to Defense News, which quoted Will Roper, the then top acquisition official who stated this on September 14, 2020, the US military supposedly “secretly designed, built and flew at least one prototype” (although it was never revealed when exactly this allegedly “took place”).

The article goes on to praise “the USAF’s ability to employ radical new technologies and advancements” that supposedly “enable the US military to stay far ahead”, insisting that superpower adversaries such as Russia and China are allegedly “years (if not decades) away” from building anything remotely similar.

“We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it,” Roper told Defense News in an exclusive interview at the time, adding: “We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before.”

There was never any evidence to support such claims, but the USAF kept insisting this was the case, particularly after China flew its own prototypes late last year.

Worse yet, the mainstream propaganda machine was still bragging about the non-existent “flying prototype” after the Chinese jets took to the skies. Namely, as recently as March this year, American media were publishing reports about this supposed “event”, all in a futile (and rather pathetic) attempt to demean the importance of China’s accomplishments in aviation. Well, just yesterday, on July 2, the USAF’s top commanding officer effectively admitted on live TV that all these claims were blatant lies. How do we know this? Well, if the USAF allegedly “designed, built and flew a prototype in just a year” back in 2020, how come it suddenly needs three years to do the same in 2025?

In other words, either something “truly groundbreaking” happened when the USAF went from doing everything in a year to now being “very far along in risk reduction phase” (which effectively boils down to “still trying to figure out whether this thing can actually fly”) or they’re lying. Worse yet, back in May, military sources were still tiptoeing around the exact date of the F-47’s entry into service, with some claiming that this would happen “sometime between 2025 and 2029”. Once again, it turns out even this was far too optimistic, as General Allvin’s revelation that (he hopes) the prototype would fly in three years means that it would take much longer before the new jet actually enters service (and perhaps decades from now before it becomes fully operational). In the meantime, China’s three next-generation aircraft are already flying.

Another interesting revelation regarding the F-47 also came in recent months, when General Allvin stated that the incentive to develop the new jet also came because of Lockheed Martin’s monopolistic tendencies. Namely, the USAF’s top commanding officer thinks that the controversial corporation has “too much control” over the F-35 and that the US military is now effectively “taking it back” with the NGAD program. Back in May, he told Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) that the new contract with Boeing gives the USAF “more control than with previous fighter programs”, adding that “we have more ownership of the tech base and we own the mission systems”. This highlights yet another drawback of the F-35 (as if its reputation wasn’t bad enough already), because if the USAF itself is worried about this, what can other countries expect?

General Allvin argues that “government ownership will make it easier for companies besides Boeing to compete to upgrade the aircraft” and that “updates can be rolled out at the speed of software, not hardware”. He also added that this stands “in contrast to the F-35 experience, in which Lockheed Martin owns the intellectual property, giving it a lock on future work”, a mistake he “doesn’t want to repeat”. And yet, similar (if not worse) issues with delays and cost overruns are actually being repeated with the F-47, as evidenced by the latest revelations.

This explains why truly sovereign countries are avoiding acquiring not just American, but Western military technologies in general. India’s recent troubles with France and its overhyped and exorbitantly overpriced “Rafale” fighter jets stand as a testament to that, with Russia offering a viable way out.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: B-2 bomber take off, B-52 bombers on tarmac on Diego Garcia in 2003 (From the Public Domain)

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