A Tale of Two Tales

The flyaway cost of Boeing’s F-15EX Eagle II is approximately $90-million per each lot-two aircraft—some $7.5 million more than the going price of Lockheed-Martin’s lot-15 F-35A. The USAF and Boeing finalized a contract for the F-15EX’s next three production lots on 28 September 2023. Under subject agreement, U.S. taxpayers will shell-out “approximately” $90-million for every lot-two F-15EX, an eye-watering $97-million for each lot-three jet, and a slightly-less-if-not-still-preposterous $94-million per lot-four jet. By way of comparison, the current flyaway cost of Lockheed-Martin’s stealthy, slow, and thus far demonstrably unreliable F-35A—the iteration of the fifth-generation f