by Chris Pocock
The future sales prospects for Boeing’s military aircraft are mixed at present. The F-15 and F-18 production lines now seem more likely to extend into the next decade with more sales to the Middle East, now that political objections in Tel Aviv and Washington appear to be subsiding. A sale of fourKC-46 tankers to Japan has now been formally notified, but some U.S. Air Force (USAF) leadership has suggested that the service will buy no more than the 179 aircraft to which it is already committed. Meanwhile, Boeing faces stiff competition for the USAF JSTARS replacement, while arguing that the 737-800 airframe that it has proposed for that near-term requirement is also suitable as an AWACS and Rivet Joint SIGINT platform further in the next decade. All three missions are currently flown by Boeing 707 derivatives.
Kuwait is reportedly seeking 28 F-18s and Qatar 36 F-15s, with options for 36 more. The potential sales are yet to be formally approved and notified by the U.S. government. But the recent U..S 10-year, $38billion arms supply agreement with Israel might help clear the way. That agreement might even result in Boeing supplying more F-15I Strike Eagles to Israel, which received 25 of them in the mid-1990s. Boeing is still offering various avionics upgrades to the F-15, some of which are found on the 84 F-15SAs for Saudi Arabia that are now in production. But the company has dropped the full set of “Silent Eagle” stealth airframe modifications that it first proposed in 2009. As for the F/A-18, Boeing is still proposing the Advanced Super Hornet upgrades, some of which flew in mid-2013.
Read the full story at AINonline