The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing (NYSE: BA) a potential $22.9B contract to design and build the service branch’s F-15EX fighter aircraft platform.
Boeing received a $1.2B initial delivery order under the sole-source, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to manufacture eight F-15EX jets, the Department of Defense said Monday.
The IDIQ contract includes the development, integration, testing, certification, verification, sustainment, modification and delivery of fighter jets and provision of spares, training materials, technical data, support equipment and technical support.
Work will run through Dec. 31. 2023, in St. Louis and at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.
The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center is obligating $248.2M in research, development, test and evaluation funds and $53M in aircraft procurement funds for fiscal year 2020 at the time of award.
“F-15EX brings together benefits of digital engineering, open mission systems and agile software development to keep it affordable and upgradable for decades to come,” Prat Kumar, a vice president and F-15 program manager at Boeing, said in a statement published Monday. “This means we can rapidly test and field new capabilities on F-15EX keeping our warfighters ahead of threats.”
The Air Force said Monday it expects the first two fighter jets to be delivered in the second quarter of FY 2021 and the remaining aircraft by FY 2023. The first lot of F-15EXs will deployed at Eglin AFB to support testing initiatives.
The service branch plans to buy a total of 76 F-15EX jets over a five-year term through the Future Years Defense Program to replace its legacy F-15C/Ds.
F-15EX is a two-seat fighter aircraft and has a deep magazine for carrying weapons. It can field hypersonic weapons weighing up to 7K pounds and features an electronic warfare system, fly-by-wire flight controls, advanced cockpit systems and other software capabilities.
