F-15 Strike
Eagle on October 01, 2015. (U.S. Air Force photos by Senior Airman Brandi Hansen)
Released By:
Mr. Kevin Gaddie
96th Test Wing
DSN 882-3915
The U.S. Air Force has awarded Cincinnati’s General Electric Aerospace a contract worth up to $5 billion to provide the company’s F110-129 engines for Boeing F-15 fighters and Lockheed Martin F-16s for the Royal Saudi Air Force, Royal Jordanian Air Force, Bulgaria and possibly other countries that have agreed in Letters of Offer and Acceptance to sole-source such engines with GE.
“This contract provides five years of pricing for F110-129 install and spare engines, with modernized engine monitoring system computers and spare engine accessories supporting FMS customers,” DoD said in a Friday contract announcement. “Work will be performed at Cincinnati, Ohio; and San Antonio, Texas, and is expected to be complete by Dec. 31, 2030.”
The Air Force said last July that it was sticking with the F110-129 for the F-15EX and would not outfit that aircraft–the latest F-15 model–with the RTX Pratt & Whitney F100-229 engine.
In 2021, the Air Force chose GE over Pratt & Whitney to build up to 329 engines for the F-15EX under a nearly $1.6 billion contract.
The Air Force had picked GE to build eight engines for F-15EX Lot 1 but opened Lots 2-9 to competition.
Foreign nations, including Indonesia and Poland, are interested in buying the fly-by-wire F-15EX, which is based on the two-seat Qatari F-15QA configuration upgraded with U.S. Air Force-only features, including the BAE Systems‘ Eagle Passive Active Warning and Survivability System (EPAWSS) and the F-15 Operational Flight Program software.
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.