The Air Force wants to build a campus worth more than $1 billion at Nellis Air Force Base to develop and test its newest fighter jet, the F-47 — a project that would bring hangars, laboratories and a massive aircraft apron to the east side of the base in the northeast Las Vegas Valley. The Pentagon posted a presolicitation notice on October 22 outlining the plan, which calls for an initial award by February 2027 and years of construction stretching into the next decade.
According to the Aviation Week, the F-47 Future Campus will be a $1.057 billion construction project, and operational testing for the jet will be based at the Nevada installation. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the notice puts the cost at just over $1 billion and places the campus primarily on the east side of Nellis. Neither Air Force nor Nellis spokespeople immediately responded to comment requests, per the Review-Journal.
What the Campus Would Include
Per the Review-Journal's account of the notice, the planned campus includes aircraft hangars, specialized laboratories, simulator and training facilities, airfield pavements, maintenance facilities and personnel support buildings. Aviation Week reports more specific figures: a 116,745-square-foot operations and maintenance hangar, a 39,200-square-foot reprogramming lab, a 40,903-square-foot simulator facility, and a 1.154-million-square-foot apron fitted with sunshades. A separate accounting from Air & Space Forces Magazine describes the operations and maintenance building as nearly 117,000 square feet and the simulator facility as nearly 41,000 square feet, while the Review-Journal cites the apron at roughly 1.1 million square feet — figures close enough to reflect the same project but not identical across the reports.
Air & Space Forces Magazine reports the Air Force intends to issue an initial award for the campus in February 2027, after which about nine months of design and preconstruction work would be followed by roughly 40 months of heavier construction, pushing the timeline into early March 2031. A subsequent phase running through 2032 would add fuel-cell, low-observable corrosion-control and weapons-load training hangars along with additional maintenance and dining facilities, the same outlet reports.
Why the Air Force Is Betting on the F-47
Boeing describes the F-47 as a sixth-generation stealth fighter, and the jet has been identified as the Next Generation Air Dominance platform meant to eventually replace the F-22 Raptor sometime in the 2030s. The Air Force announced in March 2025 that it had chosen Boeing to build the aircraft, and the first F-47 is now under construction at Boeing's facilities, the magazine's report notes. TWZ reports the jet is expected to make its first flight in 2028 and enter operational service in the early 2030s.
It remains unclear whether the Nellis construction signals that F-47s will be permanently based in Nevada long-term. The same magazine notes that what is not yet clear is whether this construction indicates any intention to permanently locate the jets at the base. Nellis sits adjacent to the Nevada Test and Training Range, which the Air Force describes as the largest contiguous air and ground space available for peacetime military operations in the free world, according to the magazine's reporting.
A Bigger Construction Push Across the Air Force
The Nellis project is part of a much larger spending surge. The Department of the Air Force requested roughly $26.7 billion for fiscal 2027 construction and facilities sustainment, restoration and modernization — up from $13 billion the year before — and that request includes $730 million specifically for new hangar and support spaces tied to the F-47 at Nellis, the outlet reports. Across active-duty, Guard, Reserve and Space Force facilities, the department's proposed new construction projects total $11.15 billion for fiscal 2027, more than double the $5.33 billion budgeted for 2026.
TWZ reports the Air Force is also restructuring how it approaches testing, folding developmental and operational test elements together earlier in a program's life to speed up fielding. The outlet points to the F-15EX Eagle II, which reached initial operational capability in 2024, as the first Air Force aircraft fully tested and fielded through developmental and operational testing conducted in parallel — a model the service appears to be leaning on as it builds out the F-47's home at Nellis.
