Boeing nabs $2.4 billion deal for more F-15EX fighters

An F-15EX Eagle II aircraft assigned to the Oregon Air National Guard’s 142nd Wing takes off from Nellis Air Force Base (AFB), Nevada, August 27, 2026. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Steph Sawyer)

WASHINGTON — The Air Force on Tuesday awarded Boeing a roughly $2.4 billion contract to produce a new batch of 22 F-15EX fighter jets, narrowly meeting a deadline to disburse reconciliation funds.

Despite headwinds like inflation and a 2025 strike that stopped work at Boeing’s F-15 production line, the Air Force said in a press release that the service struck an agreement that managed to preserve all 22 aircraft planned for the jet’s seventh production lot.

“Lot 7 reflects a disciplined approach to executing available resources while balancing the realities affecting defense production,” Brig. Gen. Timothy Helfrich, the portfolio acquisition executive for the Air Force’s Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Directorate, said in the release. “The team remained focused on affordability, production continuity and delivering the aircraft needed to modernize the U.S. Air Force’s fighter fleet for the threats we face today and into the future.”

The contract was issued on the same day that the Navy picked Boeing to build the service’s sixth-generation F/A-XX fighter jet, which was first reported by Breaking Defense ahead of a formal announcement. Boeing beat out Northrop Grumman for the $20 billion deal to develop the aircraft, cementing the aerospace giant as the sole provider of the Pentagon’s sixth-gen fighters for the foreseeable future.

The F-15EX award, for its part, came with some urgency. The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill provided billions of dollars for F-15EX procurement through what’s known as the reconciliation process. The Pentagon was permitted to spend reconciliation funds over several years, but was required to contract work out by Oct. 1 — the start of fiscal year 2027 — or face an 8.3 percent cut.

In its release, the Air Force said that the contract “preserv[es] the buying power of congressionally provided reconciliation funding and sustain[s] F-15EX production.”

Boeing in a press release said that the award brings the total of F-15EX jets under contract with the Air Force to 120, roughly half of a planned fleet of 267 aircraft . The Air Force’s FY27 budget also requested F-15EX funding through the normal budget process, rather than relying on reconciliation funds once again.

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“Boeing is committed to delivering this critically important aircraft to the U.S. Air Force, which will strengthen the nation’s ability to project power and stay ahead of emerging threats around the world,” Christina Upah, Boeing’s vice president for the F-15 program, said in its release.

The F-15EX is a modernized version of the legacy F-15 featuring a new electronic warfare suite and updated radar, among other features. Boeing has struggled to ramp up output of the fighter amid schedule setbacks, and is aiming to increase production to two aircraft a month.

A recently published Pentagon document, known as a selected acquisition report [ PDF ], says that F-15EX delays have breached the program’s baseline schedule for full operational capability. The milestone will be delayed about seven months to February 2028, the report says.

The Air Force’s plan to surge its buy of the F-15 “introduces new cost and schedule uncertainties,” the selected acquisition report says, requiring a “major technical refresh to overcome” diminishing manufacturing sources. That would include “replacing obsolete key systems” like the jet’s radar, engines and electronic warfare suite, “which constitutes a significant redesign effort,” according to the report.

The document says that the Air Force does not have a cost estimate for its expanded buy, and that the program is being re-baselined to account for lost time. Breaking Defense has asked the Air Force for an updated baseline.

2026年8月27日，一架隶属于俄勒冈州空中国民警卫队第142联队的F-15EX“鹰II”战斗机从内华达州内利斯空军基地起飞。（美国空中国民警卫队照片，摄影：一级军士长斯蒂芬·索耶）

华盛顿——周二，美国空军授予波音公司一份价值约 24 亿美元的合同，用于生产一批新的 22 架 F-15EX 战斗机，勉强赶在拨付和解资金的最后期限前完成。

尽管面临通货膨胀和 2025 年导致波音 F-15 生产线停工的罢工等不利因素，美国空军在一份新闻稿中表示，空军达成了一项协议，成功保留了计划用于该战机第七批次生产的全部 22 架飞机。

“第七批次体现了在合理利用现有资源的同时，兼顾影响国防生产的实际情况的严谨方法，”空军战斗机和先进飞机局采购项目主管蒂莫西·赫尔弗里奇准将在新闻稿中表示。“团队始终专注于降低成本、确保生产的连续性，并交付美国空军战斗机机队现代化所需的飞机，以应对我们当前和未来面临的威胁。”

就在同一天，海军宣布选择波音公司建造其第六代F/A-XX战斗机，而《防务新闻》（Breaking Defense）网站在正式宣布之前率先报道了这一消息。波音公司击败诺斯罗普·格鲁曼公司，赢得了这份价值200亿美元的战机研发合同，巩固了这家航空航天巨头在可预见的未来作为五角大楼第六代战斗机唯一供应商的地位。

就F-15EX的授予而言，情况则较为紧迫。2025年的《一项宏伟法案》（One Big Beautiful Bill）通过所谓的“协调程序”为F-15EX的采购提供了数十亿美元的资金。五角大楼获准在未来几年内使用这笔协调资金，但必须在10月1日（即2027财年开始之时）之前完成外包工作，否则将面临8.3%的预算削减。

空军在新闻稿中表示，该合同“保留了国会提供的协调资金的购买力，并维持了 F-15EX 的生产”。

波音公司在一份新闻稿中表示，此次授标使美国空军订购的F-15EX战机总数达到120架，约占计划建造的267架机队的一半。空军2027财年预算也通过正常的预算流程申请了F-15EX的资金，而没有再次动用协调资金。

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波音公司F-15项目副总裁克里斯蒂娜·乌帕在新闻稿中表示：“波音致力于向美国空军交付这款至关重要的飞机，这将增强美国投射力量的能力，并使其在应对世界各地新出现的威胁方面保持领先地位。”

F-15EX是F-15的现代化改进型，配备了全新的电子战系统和升级后的雷达等诸多功能。由于进度受阻，波音公司一直在努力提高这款战斗机的产量，目前的目标是将月产量提升至两架。

一份近期公布的五角大楼文件，即一份名为《精选采购报告》的文件[PDF]指出，F-15EX项目的延误已经破坏了该项目全面具备作战能力的基准时间表。报告称，这一里程碑事件将被推迟约7个月，至2028年2月。

空军计划大幅增加F-15战机的采购量，这一举措“带来了新的成本和进度不确定性”，选定的采购报告指出，这需要进行“重大技术升级以克服”日益减少的制造资源。报告称，这将包括“更换过时的关键系统”，例如战机的雷达、发动机和电子战系统，“这构成了一项意义重大的重新设计工作”。

文件显示，空军尚未对扩大采购计划的成本进行估算，并且正在重新评估该计划的基准线，以弥补时间损失。Breaking Defense 已要求空军提供更新后的基准线。