WASHINGTON — President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the US will begin producing the world’s first sixth-generation fighter jet — whose name includes an homage to the commander in chief.

The new F-47 will succeed the F-35, long heralded for its superior stealth capabilities. In its Navy variant, the F-35 was the first US fighter jet to be able to land vertically like a helicopter, allowing it to touch down on ships with limited runway room.

Trump joked that he liked the name of the new jet, which shares the same number as Trump’s second administration. He denied naming it after himself, insisting that “the generals picked a title, and it’s a beautiful number.”

Details about the new asset were limited to protect against foreign adversaries gleaning intelligence about it. Trump mentioned the F-47 would be the first aircraft to be able to “fly with drones,” though it was unclear what he meant.

“It flies with many, many drones, as many as you want. And it’s a technology that’s new, but it doesn’t fly by itself. It flies (with a pilot) but with many drones, as many as we want,” the president said. “And that’s something that no other plane can do.”

Trump added that he could not say how many F-47s were being ordered from Washington state-based manufacturer Boeing or how much they will cost “because it would give it would give way to some of the technology and some of the size of the plane, it’s a good-sized plane.”

While production formally began with Trump’s Friday announcement, the F-47 project has been underway for years, with prototypes in the air since 2020, the president said from the Oval Office.

Known as Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD), the manned jet will serve as quarterback to a fleet of future drone aircraft designed to be able to penetrate the air defenses of China and any other potential foes. The initial contract to proceed with production on a version for the Air Force is worth an estimated $20 billion.

A separate Navy contract for its version of the NGAD fighter is still under competition between Northrop Grumman and Boeing.

Critics have questioned the cost and the necessity of the program as the Pentagon is still struggling to fully produce the F-35, which is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.7 trillion over its lifespan. In addition, the Pentagon’s future stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, will have many of the same cutting edge technologies in advanced materials, AI, propulsion and stealth.

More than 1,100 F-35s have already been built for the U.S. and multiple international partners.

A fleet of about 100 future B-21 stealth bombers at an estimated total cost of at least $130 billion is also planned. The first B-21 aircraft are now in test flights.

“This is a historic investment in the American military, in the American industrial base, in American industry, that will help revive the warrior ethos inside our military — which we’re doing — rebuild our military — which the previous administration did not do, by the way,” Hegseth said during the announcement.

The Pentagon chief alleged that the Biden administration had “paused this program and were prepared to potentially scrap it.”

Last year, the Biden administration’s Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, ordered a pause on the NGAD program to review if the aircraft was still needed or if the program, which was first designed in 2018, needed to be modified to reflect the past few years of warfighting advances.

That review by think tanks and academia examined what conflict with China would look like with NGAD and then without it — and determined that NGAD was still needed.

“We’ve had the F-15, we’ve had the F-16, the F-18, the F-22, the F-35 — now we have the F-47, which sends a very direct, clear message to our allies that we’re not going anywhere — and to our enemies that we can, we will, be able to project power around the globe unimpeded for generations to come,” Hegseth said.

Air Force Chief of Staff David Allvin said the jet will provide “more lethality” and “more modernized capability” that can adapt to many warfighting scenarios.

“Air dominance is not a birthright, but has become synonymous with American air power,” Allvin said. “Dominance needs to be earned every single day. And since the earliest days of aerial warfare, brave American airmen have jumped into their machines, taken to the air, and they’ve cleared the skies.

“And whether that be clearing the skies so we can rain down destruction on our enemies from above, or we can clear the path to the ground forces below, that’s been our commitment to the fight, and that’s really been our promise to America, and with this F-47 as the crown jewel in the next generation of [our] air-dominant family of systems, we’re going to be able to keep that promise well into the future.”

With Post wires