ST LOUIS–If Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle wins South Korea’s competition to supply the next fighter jet, it would extend the production line for the aircraft by three years and into the 2020s, a company executive recently said.
Boeing is currently building F-15s for Saudi Arabia and is offering a version of the aircraft designed to be partially stealthy and carry conformal fuel tanks and external weapons pods.
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| Boeing’s F-15 Strike Eagles. Photo by U.S. Air Force |
Steve Winkler, Boeing’s director of business development for the F-15 program, said the Saudi procurement already underway will keep the line moving through 2018, and winning the contract with Seoul for 60 aircraft under the F-X program would keep it open until 2021.
Boeing is believed to have a slight edge after reports emerged that its proposal was the only one that met South Korea’s budget requirements.
South Korean and other international news outlets reported in mid-August that Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] F-35 came in higher than outlined cost requirements, and the Eurofighter consortium’s Typhoon bid was reportedly eliminated after its proposal was adjusted outside of the stated requirements to push the price down.
Even though Boeing met the price threshold, Seoul could consider other factors in determining the ultimate winner, including capabilities, lifecycle costs and technology transfers to South Korean industry and other aspects of the requirements.
“They’re scoring and weighing those and coming up with a score and comparing that to where the price is relative to the budget,” Winkler told a group of reporters.
South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration, or DAPA, is expected to announce the winner by the end of September. Lockheed Martin has said it believes its proposal is alive and well and characterized media reports suggesting it too had been cast aside as speculative and inaccurate.