Israel Tests Whether the US Will Export the F-47

Israel’s Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces intend to request information on Boeing’s F-47, a sixth-generation fighter that has not flown and is not cleared for export. The ask, described in August 2026, is a study of US policy, not a signed buy.

Officials want to know whether Washington will treat the jet like the F-35, which allies can purchase, or like the F-22 Raptor, which Congress locked inside the US Air Force. That answer will land years before any Israeli F-47 could exist.

Israel Is Asking About a Jet It Cannot Buy Yet

Defense Ministry and IDF officials plan to seek data on the F-47’s design and on US rules for sharing it, while they keep buying F-35I and F-15 jets. No procurement case has been opened. No letter of offer has been sent. The step is an information request, the first move in a process that can stall for a decade.

The timing is not about a delivery slot in 2026 or 2027. First flight for the US jet is targeted for 2028, and full fielding sits in the 2030s. What Israel can force now is a political read: will the next American air-superiority fighter be allowed out of the country at all?

Military analyst Yonah Jeremy Bob wrote in July 2026 that Israeli officials were “not optimistic about getting F-47 compensation” if Turkey received F-35s. A month later the same establishment said it would still ask for the files. Pessimism about a sweetener is compatible with a probe of the rulebook. If the United States writes an export path for the F-47, Israel wants to be on the list before Japan, or anyone else, fills it.

Congress Locked the F-22 in 1998

The F-22 was built as an American monopoly. In 1998, Rep. David Obey attached a one-line rider to a defense spending bill: none of the funds in that act could be used to approve or license sale of the F-22 to any foreign government. The ban held. Production later stopped, and the Air Force kept 187 operational jets.

Israel asked anyway. So did Japan and Australia. Each time the answer was no. The Raptor’s stealth coatings, sensors, and production methods were treated as too sensitive to risk, even with close partners. Allies were pointed to the F-35, a fifth-generation jet designed from the start to be sold, maintained, and partly built abroad.

Israel took that deal and became one of the first foreign F-35 operators, with the right to fit Israeli systems on the F-35I Adir. The F-22 gap never closed. Israeli planners had seen the Raptor as the true replacement for the F-15 in the air-to-air role. They received a multirole stealth jet instead, and they have been living with that trade for a generation.

HOW THE F-22 BAN WAS BUILT

1. 1998: Rep. David Obey’s amendment bars the use of defense funds to approve or license F-22 sales to any foreign government.
2. 2011: F-22 production ends. The Air Force holds 187 operational jets. Israel, Japan, and Australia have all been refused.
3. March 21, 2025: President Donald Trump announces Boeing’s F-47 award and says certain allies may buy a version cut by about 10 percent.
4. July 2026: Israeli officials are described as unconvinced that F-47 access would be offered if Turkey got F-35s.
5. August 2026: The Defense Ministry and IDF prepare to request F-47 information and to test whether export rules will differ from the F-22’s.

The F-47 is meant to replace the F-22 as the US air-superiority backbone. If it inherits the Obey logic, Israel’s request dies in the same file. If it inherits the F-35 logic, the next 20 years of Middle East airpower look different, including for states Israel does not want on the same ramp.

A 10 Percent Cut for Certain Allies

Trump opened that door in the Oval Office the day Boeing won the jet. He said allies were “calling constantly,” then offered toned-down versions for certain allies.

We like to tone them down about 10 percent, which probably makes sense, because someday, maybe, they’re not our allies.

President Donald Trump, White House, March 21, 2025

That line is not a Foreign Military Sale. It is not a license, a price, or a configuration. It is a presidential preference for a degraded export jet, said out loud, with a warning attached. Israeli officials still have to learn whether the bureaucracy will follow it, and how much of the real aircraft would be stripped out to make a 10 percent cut.

Senior White House officials have also hinted that Japan might be allowed into the project. Israeli defense officials, according to the August reporting, cannot tell if those comments were a signal aimed at China or a real invitation to partners. They plan to run their own assessment rather than trust the hint.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The ask: Israeli defense officials intend to request F-47 information and to study US export policy, alongside F-35 and F-15 buys.
• The precedent: The F-22 was never sold abroad. The legal tool was the 1998 Obey amendment.
• The political signal: Trump said in March 2025 that certain allies could buy a version toned down about 10 percent.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A purchase: No Israeli letter of request to buy the F-47 has been announced.
• An export case: No Foreign Military Sale or program-share with Israel or Japan has been published.
• The cut: No one has defined which sensors, software, or stealth features a 10 percent export jet would lose.

A cut jet would still break the F-22 pattern. The Raptor had no export model, even a weaker one. Designing a reduced F-47 means the US is willing, in principle, to put sixth-generation air-superiority hardware on foreign ramps. That is the decision Israel is trying to freeze on paper.

Why the First F-47 Will Fly Without Its Engine

The Air Force says the F-47 will have a combat radius of more than 1,000 nautical miles, about 1,850 km, nearly double the F-22, and fly faster than Mach 2. Those figures are the ones on the record. They are also the reason the engine is late.

WHAT THE AIR FORCE HAS PUT ON THE RECORD

• Combat radius: More than 1,000 nautical miles, about 1,850 km, nearly double the F-22.
• Speed: Greater than Mach 2.
• US fleet: More than 185 jets, with room to go higher.
• First flight: Targeted for 2028, three years after the March 2025 award.

Range at that scale depends on a new adaptive-cycle engine, a three-stream design from GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney that can open a third air path for cruise or close it for combat thrust. That powerplant, run as Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion, is not expected to be ready to put on an aircraft until about 2030. The first F-47 is therefore set to fly on an interim engine.

Air Force Gen. Dale White, who oversees the program, told reporters on February 25, 2026, that work was “doing exceptionally well” and that Boeing was “on time and on target.” The first airframe was already in production. He did not claim the final engine would be under it.

That lag is the part of the Israeli file that a glossy rendering will not fix. A jet that first flies in 2028 without its range engine is a test article. An Israeli buy, if one ever comes, would wait on US production, on a later engine retrofit, and on whatever export kit Washington allows. Claims that the F-47 already makes the F-35 obsolete collide with that calendar. Israel can park Adirs this decade. It cannot park an F-47.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the award that the F-47 is “cheaper, longer range and more stealthy” than the F-22. Then-chief of staff Gen. David Allvin said experimental X-planes had been flying for five years and logging hundreds of hours. Boeing, in its own statement, said the Air Force had given it a contract to design, build and deliver the jet, and that further technical detail stays classified under US export law. Steve Parker, then Boeing Defense’s interim chief, said the company had made “the most significant investment in the history of our defense business” to be ready.

The F-47 is also supposed to fly with Collaborative Combat Aircraft, drone wingmen, as the manned node in a larger set. Israeli briefings add onboard drones and heavy weapons loads beyond the F-35. Those are design goals. They are not a squadron.

F-35 and F-15IA Orders Fill the Next Decade

While the F-47 file is still a question, the Israeli Air Force has been stacking fifth-generation and advanced fourth-generation jets that will arrive on known dates. The May 2026 ministerial round, which the Defense Ministry tied to lessons from the 2025 Iran campaign, pushed the F-35I fleet toward 100 and the new F-15IA fleet toward 50.

ISRAEL’S FIGHTER ORDERS THROUGH THE 2030S

The F-15IA is Israel’s version of Boeing’s F-15EX. The air force wanted a jet that can haul heavy Israeli-made weapons against hard targets, work the F-35 cannot do as well with its smaller bay. Deliveries of the first 25 start in 2031. The F-47, even in a friendly export case, would arrive after that wave, not instead of it.

Lockheed Martin still owns the stealth fighter Israel will actually fly through the late 2020s. Boeing owns the F-15IA line and the F-47 design. An Israeli F-47 ask therefore sits on top of a Boeing relationship that is already expanding, not in place of the Adir force.

Japan Got the Sales Pitch First

Israel is not the first capital to hear the export version of this jet. Trump raised the F-47 with then-Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in 2025 and, in Japanese accounts of that call, offered a reduced variant. Tokyo is also a partner in the Global Combat Air Programme with the United Kingdom and Italy, a separate sixth-generation project aimed at 2035. A US offer pulls at that triangle. A slip in British funding has already made the 2035 date look soft inside Japan.

Boeing’s interest in more than one customer is no longer theoretical. On September 29, 2026, the US Navy selected Boeing for the carrier F/A-XX, a second selection for sixth-generation fighter work after the F-47, in a contract the Pentagon put at more than $20 billion for development. Parker said delivering two advanced fighters in parallel “was always our plan.” A classified plant in St. Louis, backed by nearly $2 billion, is being finished to support that load. Export volume is how fighter lines stay open. It is also how unit costs fall for the US Air Force.

OTHER SIXTH-GEN PATHS IN PLAY

• Japan: Heard a Trump pitch for a reduced F-47 while still committed, on paper, to GCAP with Britain and Italy.
• United Kingdom and Italy: Tied to GCAP’s 2035 target and to the industrial jobs behind it.
• Israel: Preparing an F-47 information request while taking F-35s and F-15IAs through the 2030s.
• Turkey and the UAE: Still arguing over F-35 access, which is the fifth-generation fight Israel watches for its qualitative edge.

If F-35s spread further in the region, Israel’s edge depends on remaining a step ahead in stealth, weapons, and range. A US decision to sell even a cut F-47 to Israel would be that step. A decision to sell it to several partners at once would shrink the step. That is why the information request is aimed at policy, not at a brochure.

The Policy Fight Starts Before First Flight

May 2024, the Air Force paused NGAD to revisit cost and design, then handed the restarted program to the incoming Trump team. The EMD contract that followed funds a small set of test jets and holds options for low-rate production. Contract value is classified. Trump said the price could not be disclosed because it would reveal technology and the aircraft’s size.

None of those program facts require Israel to sign for an F-47 before 2030. They do require a rule on foreign access, because F-35 arguments with Turkey and Gulf states are live now, and because Japan is already being courted. Boeing was already building the first F-47 airframe by late 2025, and Israel’s F-15IA jets are not due until 2031. An export rule can be written before either of those dates.