The “Eagle Crest” programme will cover F-15s in service with several countries.
Boeing has been awarded a sweeping contract worth more than $130 billion for sustainment and modernisation of the global F-15 fighter fleet.
The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract was confirmed by the Pentagon on 24 August under a new programme dubbed “F-15 Eagle Crest”.
“This contract provides for aircraft production, systems integration, modernisation, upgrades, retrofits, sustainment, and the establishment of organic depot maintenance capabilities to deliver and maintain critical F-15 Eagle Weapon System capabilities,” the Pentagon says.
The deal covers all of the F-15 operators in the US Air Force and Air National Guard, plus fleets of the multi-role Boeing fighter in Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Singapore.
Curiously, Indonesia and Poland are included in the list. In 2023, Indonesia signed a memorandum of understanding to order the F-15EX, but this has apparently fallen through. Poland is interested in the aircraft, but a formal order has yet to emerge.
The ordering period for work under Eagle Crest will run until August 2031, with an option to extend to August 2036. Work will be performed at Boeing’s fighter aircraft production campus in St. Louis, Missouri, and is expected to be completed by August 2037.
While specific systems are not mentioned in the contract, one likely candidate is the BAE Systems Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System, which uses advanced electronic warfare measures to protect the non-stealth F-15 from enemy radar threats.
There are roughly 900 F-15s in service globally, including legacy F-15C air superiority models, F-15E multi-role strike fighters and Boeing’s modernised F-15EX, which is in active production.
The F-15 series is the fourth-most prolific fighter type in the world, surpassed in number only by the Lockheed Martin F-16 with 2,100 examples in service worldwide, the actively growing fleet of multivariant Lockheed Martin F-35s that currently sits at 1,330 examples and the Russian-made UAC Sukhoi Su-27/30/34/35 family, which numbers 1,300 examples globally.
Updated with clarification about the status of F-15EX with Indonesia and Poland.
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