The F-15EX has a new name

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Drive’s latest F-15EX variant shall be known as the Eagle II, the service introduced Wednesday.

Lt. Gen. Duke Richardson, the service’s high uniformed acquisition official, introduced the official designation throughout a rollout and naming ceremony at Eglin Air Drive Base, Fla.

In whole, the service plans to purchase a minimum of 144 F-15EXs to interchange the F-15C/D fleet, which has a median age of 37 years and is beginning to endure structural pressure. The totality of the Air Nationwide Guard’s F-15C/D fleet shall be changed by both F-15EXs or F-35As, mentioned Lt. Gen. Mike Loh, Air Nationwide Guard director.

The F-15EX features a collection of upgrades when in comparison with the older F-15C Eagle and F-15E Strike Eagle fashions, together with the Eagle Passive/Lively Warning and Survivability System digital warfare system, a digital cockpit, the extra superior ADCP-II mission pc from Honeywell, and fly-by-wire flight controls.

Most necessary is the plane’s open structure spine, which can permit the service to rapidly replace the plane and add new capabilities, Richardson mentioned.

As a result of most of the EX mannequin’s new techniques had been already in manufacturing for F-15 prospects like Qatar or Saudi Arabia, the Air Drive was capable of skip an extended improvement interval. Finally, this system moved from contract award to the supply of the primary plane in about 9 months, in response to Richardson.

“I might say this present day was a very long time coming, however it has really come to fruition very quick from an acquisition perspective,” he mentioned.

The F-15EX made its first flight on Feb. 2 at Lambert Worldwide Airport in St. Louis, Missouri. A month later, on March 10, Boeing delivered the primary plane to the Air Drive, which is at the moment placing the aircraft by means of operational checks at Eglin.

The Air Drive positioned its first order for the F-15EX in July 2020, awarding a contract for the primary lot of eight jets with a price to not exceed about $1.2 billion. All of these plane are set to be delivered to Eglin AFB by fiscal 2023.

The second lot of F-15EX planes is on schedule for supply in fiscal 12 months 2024 to Kingsley Subject Air Nationwide Guard Base in Oregon. That base can even function the location for F-15EX coaching. The third lot will ship to Portland ANGB in Oregon in fiscal 12 months 2025, with the bottom’s 142nd Wing turning into the primary operational unit to fly the plane.

The contract has choices that will permit the service to purchase as much as 200 jets, with a complete most worth for this system of $23 billion.