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The two proposed engines that might one day power a sixth-generation U.S. Air Force fighter have passed an important design review, defense firms announced this week.

And with the detailed design reviews for GE Aerospace’s XA102 and Pratt & Whitney’s XA103 now complete, the companies are moving forward to build prototype demonstration engines to prove they will work.

The XA102 and XA103 are GE’s and Pratt’s pitch for the Air Force’s Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion program, which is intended to be the propulsion system for the crewed fighter portion of the Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, family of systems.

Both engines use adaptive technologies that would allow an NGAD aircraft to adjust to the ideal thrust configuration for its situation, providing greater range and thermal management capability than traditional engines. That technology was considered for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but the Pentagon ultimately chose to upgrade the F-35′s current engines amid concerns about the adaptive engine’s costs and limited ability to fit all versions of the F-35.

In separate releases this week, each company touted the new digital techniques it used for designing and systems engineering of its engine.

The award also provides clarity after months of uncertainty for the NGAD program. The Air Force’s former leadership under the Biden administration came within days of awarding the NGAD development contract last June, but decided instead to reanalyze the requirements and proposed costs of the new aircraft. By the end of December, the Air Force’s military leadership had concluded that the NGAD aircraft would make winning future air campaigns significantly easier than without it.

“NGAD represents a significant advancement over the F-22, which is currently the U.S. Air Force's primary air superiority fighter,” an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement.

The Air Force also revealed that the decision comes after a series of classified X-planes jointly developed with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have flown hundreds of hours, maturing new technologies that improve the stealth, range and autonomous capabilities of the new aircraft. The Air Force previously acknowledged the existence of only one technology demonstrator for the NGAD aircraft, which flew before September 2020.

The engineering and manufacturing development contract awarded to Boeing includes the production of a “small number” of test aircraft, the Air Force says. Boeing also committed to “competitively priced options” for the low-rate initial production phase, the Air Force said, without elaborating.

Further information on the NGAD Platform's technical and programmatic details remain classified under United States national security and export laws.

Under research and development contracts with DARPA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin designed two X-planes as risk reduction for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform. These aircraft first flew in 2019 and 2022, logging several hundred hours each.

As reflected in the statement from Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin: “For the past five years, the X-planes for this aircraft have been quietly laying the foundation for the F-47 — flying hundreds of hours, testing cutting-edge concepts, and proving that we can push the envelope of technology with confidence.”

DARPA’s involvement began with its Air Dominance Initiative study in 2014, which resulted in the agency’s Aerospace Innovation Initiative. “It is often only in future decades when DARPA’s disruptive impact can be unveiled – today, we’re proud to be able to share the 10-year DARPA research arc that has culminated in the F-47 program, defining the next era of American air dominance," said DARPA Acting Director Rob McHenry.

Trump says that “certain” U.S. allies will be able to buy a “toned-down” version of the new F-47 fighter jets: “Because someday they’re not our ally.”