Boeing's Nearly $2B St. Louis Expansion Supports F-47 Production Line Push; First Flight Targeted for 2028
The St. Louis expansion is infrastructure for a capacity problem that is not hypothetical: three active fighter lines producing for a force that needs all three to run hot simultaneously is a bottleneck that the Hill has already begun to price into industrial-base supplementals. If the F-47 line opens in 2030 and the Air Force wants 185 jets in service by the mid-2030s, Boeing is committing to a 5-7 year production run at a rate that will compete directly with F-15EX sustainment on the same floor—a constraint that will surface in the first LRIP contract negotiation.
Boeing is locking in the third active U.S. fighter production line at a moment when the Air Force has publicly named fighter capacity as a strategic constraint—one Helfrich explicitly tied to sustaining F-35 and F-15EX output while adding the F-47 and Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone production.
The 2028 first-flight gate and 2030 facility completion align, meaning full-rate production can begin roughly when the F-35 and F-15EX lines reach their own saturation points. Watch whether the Air Force's stated minimum of 185 F-47s holds in the FY27 FYDP or if competition for St. Louis capacity with other primes forces a replan.
What is the actual production rate Boeing is targeting for the F-47 line once it reaches full capacity—units per month or per year—and does it match the Air Force's acquisition timeline for 185 jets?
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