How Many Fighter Jets Will the U.S. Air Force Have by 2035?

The U.S. Air Force has set a requirement for 1,509 combat-coded fighters by 2035, with the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II to become the most numerous jet in its fleet and the Boeing F-47 sixth generation fighter to take over from the F-22 Raptor. The figure was revealed by Lieutenant General David Tabor, the service’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, at a Pentagon media roundtable on October 20, four days after a new fighter force structure report was submitted to Congress. Tabor stated that the report, which was not released, reflected the combatant commanders’ requirements at medium risk and that its analysis began before the war with Iran. The target marks a significant reversal for a U.S. Air Force fighter fleet that has aged for decades, and it depends on an industrial base that has yet to show it can build jets at the rate required.

The service expects to field around 1,271 combat-coded fighters in 2026, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine, while Inside Defense reported a current total of 1,298, leaving over 200 aircraft to add within a decade. The new requirement is 140 jets higher than the previous report’s goal of 1,369 by 2030, with the additional aircraft to be F-35As, F-15EXs and F-47s. Tabor estimated that the F-35’s share of the force would rise from around 30 to 40 percent and that of the F-22 and its successor from 10 to 20 percent. The remaining 40 percent would be split roughly evenly between F-15 and F-16 variants, which today make up around 15 and 45 percent of the fleet respectively. The Air Force plans to buy roughly as many F-47s as the 186 operational F-22s it built, with these expected to fly alongside collaborative combat aircraft of which 500 are planned by 2032.

Funding remains far from assured, with Air Force leaders having stated that 72 new fighters are needed each year while the 2027 budget request covers only 38 F-35s and 24 F-15EXs. The funds for 14 of those F-35s depend on $2.34 billion sought through budget reconciliation, and Tabor warned that paying for them from the base budget would mean losing “14 times [an] F-35’s worth of other capabilities that we were planning on.” Multiyear procurement authority for both types is still pending before Congress, while Lockheed Martin also faces rising export demand including the 48 F-35A fighters cleared for Saudi Arabia. Tabor stated plainly: “The question is, can industry produce at those levels?” The concern is particularly acute as China expands production of the Chengdu J-20 fifth generation fighter, with some analysts estimating that up to 1,000 could be built by 2030.

The fleet the new jets are meant to replace is heavily used and ageing, with a report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service released in September having found an average fighter age of 27.4 years and an availability rate that fell from 72.9 percent in 1995 to 53.9 percent in 2024. Much of the strain falls on the F-16, whose older airframes reach the end of their service lives in the mid-2030s, and for which a new variant tentatively called the F-16G has been considered. The F-22 fleet numbered 185 aircraft at the time of that report, with Congress having barred the Air Force from reducing it below 184 until the end of September 2027.