Trump announces the ‘F-55’ (a twin-engined F-35 derivative) and an ‘F-22 Super’
May 15, 2025
Donald Trump’s pronouncements should always be taken with a pinch of salt, since the President is capable of speaking with apparent confidence while cheerfully mangling the facts, and while demonstrating an incomplete understanding of whatever he may have been told. This was apparent during the Oval Office announcement of the Boeing F-47, when the President said that: “It’s speed is top, over two, which is something you don’t hear very often…” (Meaning that its maximum speed was more than Mach two). He also said that “I’ve seen every one of them, [other nations’ advanced fighters] and it’s not even close! This is Next Level. Five is good. This is level six.” The President has not seen other nations’ advanced fighters, and was clearly struggling to repeat what he’d been told about fifth and sixth generation aircraft.
With that caveat set out, the President did say that: “We’re doing an upgrade [on the F-35], a simple upgrade, but we’re also doing an F-55 I’m going to call it an F-55 and that’s going to be a substantial upgrade, but it’s going to be also with two engines, because F-35 has a single engine [and] I don’t like single engines… And we’re gonna do it, an F-55, if we get the right price, we have to get the right price, and that’ll be two engines and a super upgrade on the F 35.”
There has been speculation that Trump confused plans for an ‘alternative’ engine with an ‘additional’ engine, or even that he has confused the F-55 with the US Navy’s F/A-XX programme.
Trump also said that the US planned to produce what he called an ‘F-22 Super’ which he said would be “a very modern version of the F-22 fighter jet”, which he said he thought was: “the most beautiful fighter jet in the world.” This would presumably be an upgrade configuration, which Trump said: “we’re going to be going with it pretty quickly.” The President also briefly highlighted work being done on ‘drones’ (collaborative combat aircraft) and on the F-47.
The President then invited Boeing’s CEO to talk about the F-47. Ortberg said that: “The F-47 is the first sixth generation fighter in the world. We’re very excited to be developing that. We’ll be bringing that into production in the near future. There is not much I can say, for security reasons, but we’re very pleased to be in the development process of that airplane.”
