Boeing Awarded 2nd Contract for F-15 Radar Upgrade Work

[tigershark]

Boeing Awarded 2nd Contract for F-15 Radar Upgrade Work
 ST. LOUIS, March 17, 2008 -- The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has been awarded a $130 million U.S. Air Force contract to upgrade 16 Air Force and Air National Guard F-15C Eagles with the APG-63(v)3 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.

The contract, which follows a similar agreement signed in September 2007 for seven aircraft, also includes initial spares and aircraft support.

"Boeing is proud to continue partnering with the Air Force and Air National Guard to provide this revolutionary technology to F-15 pilots to give them the best possible set of tools to ensure mission success," said Jim Means, director of Special Programs for Boeing Global Strike Systems.

Raytheon's APG-63(v)3 AESA radar builds upon APG 63(v)2 technology and the hardware advances of the F/A 18E/F Super Hornet's APG-79 AESA radar. It provides significantly enhanced performance and reliability at an affordable cost. The APG-63(v)3 upgrade is critical to maintaining the F-15C's air superiority today and in the future.

The APG-63(v)3 radar is the latest addition to the F-15C. Previous upgrades include a fighter-to-fighter data link, GPS navigation and the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, enabling network centric operations while employing the latest air-to-air weapons.

Link
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2008/q1/080317a_nr.html

[valkyrian]

.....the point is where are they going to find healthy Eagles? Only 16 of them?

[Webmaster]

no, it's not that bad, of the 442 grounded Eagles 1 was retired as planned, 163 were found to have flawed longerons, 259 were cleared, 19 still needed to be inspected at mid-Feb when these numbers were being published in the AFM March 2008 edition.

7 is probably not enough for all operational tests & evaluations to be carried out in time, that are needed for the contract to fit it to more airframes, so imho that's why this contract is only for 16. But it may also be for purely budget allocation reasons.