Forget NGAD F-47: ‘Ferrari’ F-35 Is the Fighter Plane the Air Force Needs

Key Points – Lockheed Martin’s proposal for a “Ferrari F-35″—an advanced variant incorporating enhanced thrust, range, stealth, and modularity at roughly half the projected cost of the F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter—is presented as a more pragmatic path for US airpower.

-This approach prioritizes evolving an existing, combat-proven, and widely allied platform (the F-35) to deliver near-sixth-generation capabilities quickly and in meaningful numbers.

-This contrasts with the NGAD program, which is viewed as an expensive, potentially late, and uncertain “fantasy platform” ill-suited for the immediate strategic need for mass, resilience, and logistical depth in a multipolar world.

Time for the Ferrari F-35

There’s a certain poetry in the timing. As the Pentagon continues to chase the technological sublime with its Next Generation Air Dominance program, Lockheed Martin has offered a counterproposal that is both brutally pragmatic and strategically sound.

The company wants to build an advanced version of the F-35  –  a so-called “Ferrari” variant – that would cost less than half of what the NGAD program is projected to devour.

The idea is simple: evolve what already works rather than wait for a fantasy platform that may never arrive. And in a world increasingly shaped by hard power, shrinking margins, and multipolar risks, that idea is not just worth considering. It’s the only responsible course.

Let’s not pretend the F-35 has had an easy life. It’s been mocked, mismanaged, and misunderstood – called everything from a flying PowerPoint deck to a trillion-dollar mistake. But history has a way of clearing the fog. The F-35 is now the central pillar of allied airpower across the Western world.

It is deployed, integrated, and – perhaps most importantly – combat credible. Japan flies it. Finland flies it. Israel uses it to strike Iranian targets in Syria. Canada finally caved and bought it. Across three continents, the F-35 is not a punchline. It’s the answer.

So what exactly is Lockheed proposing? A high-performance variant that keeps the essential architecture of the F-35 but adds thrust, range, stealth improvements, and open architecture modularity. In plain English: it will fly farther, hit harder, hide better, and evolve faster. It will cost around $150 million per aircraft. That is not cheap, but it is half the price of NGAD’s projected cost – and it is real, not theoretical.

The NGAD program, in contrast, has become a monument to ambition unmoored from reality. Born in the shadow of great power competition, NGAD was meant to leapfrog everything that came before it. It would be stealthier, faster, more autonomous, and paired with a loyal wingman fleet of drones.

It would also, apparently, be unaffordable, unsustainable, and late. Its per-unit cost is now projected at over $350 million, and the support infrastructure alone will push the entire program into the stratosphere. There’s still no flyable prototype. The operational date keeps sliding. And even if everything goes right – a generous assumption – it will enter service in token numbers by the mid-2030s. At best.

Here’s the problem: the world may not wait that long. The timeline for strategic risk is compressing. If China moves on Taiwan, it will not be deterred by software renderings and next-gen concept art. It will be deterred—or not—by forward-deployed airpower that can actually fight. NGAD is a hedge against a future that assumes the present holds. That assumption is already outdated.

The deeper issue, of course, is the premise behind NGAD. It reflects a view of war that is dangerously unmoored from history. The idea that a handful of exquisite platforms can dominate a near-peer adversary in contested airspace is pure fantasy. Wars between great powers are not won by boutique fleets.

They are won through mass, attrition, resilience, and logistical depth. The lesson of Ukraine – and the warning from every competent analysis of a Taiwan scenario – is that quantity matters. Survivability matters. Replaceability matters.

The Ferrari F-35 and Sanity 

What Lockheed is suggesting with the Ferrari F-35 is not a revolution. It’s a pivot back to sanity. Take a system that works, refine it, make it better, and get it into service in meaningful numbers before the next war starts. This is not a step backward. It’s a refusal to mortgage the present for a shimmering mirage of technological perfection. It is, to borrow a Clausewitzian frame, a return to strategy grounded in real capability, not idealized potential.

Critics will no doubt argue that the F-35 platform is aging and that a souped-up variant is a halfway measure. But that’s exactly the point. In an age of global instability and shrinking procurement windows, halfway measures grounded in reality are vastly superior to full-measure fantasies.

A Ferrari F-35 can integrate into existing air wings, plug into allied networks, and be sustained by an industrial base that already knows how to build and maintain it. NGAD, by contrast, demands an entirely new ecosystem – one that will take years to scale and is likely to price out all but the most committed buyers. And by buyers, I mean the United States alone. Allies won’t touch it.

That matters. Because interoperability is no longer a luxury. It is a strategic necessity. The F-35 has quietly become the most important piece of the West’s airpower mosaic. If Lockheed can deliver a next-gen variant that strengthens that web, while keeping costs under control and timelines realistic, it would reinforce the very alliances that underpin U.S. strategic reach. It would also help rebuild the defense industrial base by anchoring it in something sustainable, rather than a moonshot that produces 30 aircraft and burns a generation of engineers.

Some will say this is about Lockheed protecting its cash cow. That may be true. But it is also about industrial realism. The F-35 line is humming. The infrastructure exists. The training pipelines are built. The logistics networks are in place. A next-gen variant can be spun up without reinventing the wheel. That is not protectionism. It is prudence. And in a world defined by hard limits – budgetary, strategic, and operational – prudence is underrated.

What’s really on trial here is not NGAD or the F-35. It’s the entire logic of American defense procurement. We have spent decades mistaking the new for the necessary, and the exquisite for the effective. The Ferrari F-35 is not about embracing nostalgia. It’s about acknowledging that we have, right now, a platform that works – and the ability to make it better.

Stealth Fighter Variations Could Be Powerful

Imagine a U.S. Air Force composed of multiple F-35 variants: baseline Lightnings, improved Super Lightnings, and Ferrari F-35s with range and power to contest the vast reaches of the Indo-Pacific. Add in autonomous drones, smart munitions, and forward-deployed logistics, and you get something close to credible deterrence. Not theoretical dominance, but real-world lethality. Something that flies now. Not in 2040.

Airpower doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists in war plans. It exists in budget cycles. It exists in the unforgiving spaces between strategic need and industrial constraint. The Ferrari F-35 is not a perfect aircraft. But it is a platform that could tip the balance between warfighting fantasy and combat reality.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Kristen “Beo” Wolfe, F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team Commander with the 388th Fighter Wing, flies over the crowd during the Warriors Over the Wasatch Air and Space Show on June 25, 2022 at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Erica Webster)

Let NGAD remain the long bet. Let it evolve, mature, prove itself. But do not stake the future of American airpower on a system that may never arrive in time – or in numbers. The next war will not wait. And if it comes, we will fight it with what we have on hand.

That, in the end, is why Lockheed’s proposal matters. Not because it dazzles. But because it delivers. In war, as in life, the best tool is the one that works. Right now.

About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham

Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham.

Military Matters

Russia’s Su-57 Felon Stealth Fighter Is a Waste of Rubles

America’s YF-23 Black Widow II Might Be Better Than F-22 

The Challenger 3 Tanks Could Be a Game Changer