UPDATE: F-15X Will Come In Two Variants, And No, It Won’t Cost $100M Per Copy.

The December report from Bloomberg said there would be $1.2B set aside in the 2020 defense budget proposal to procure a dozen F-15X aircraft. This led many to believe the price of each F-15X would be $100M. This is more than the unit cost of an F-35A, which is slated to hit $80M apiece in the not so distant future.

According to sources close to the discussions, this is flat out incorrect. The money being set aside in 2020, possibly around $1.1B, will include an initial order for F-15Xs—likely eight aircraft—with the rest of the money being spent on non-recurring costs, including setting up and managing the program and to pay for a relatively tiny amount of development work needed to bring the aircraft’s systems and software in line with the USAF’s exact specifications.

The big question then is how much will these jets cost? Our sources familiar with the discussions say they will cost “less than an F-35 is ever forecast to cost, best case,” let alone what it is priced at now. This indicates that Boeing is going to cut the USAF one hell of a deal on these jets, which will help keep the F-15 production line open and Boeing’s historic St. Louis plant building fighters well into the latter half of the next decade. This assessment is based on the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation’s (CAPE) numbers, not just some blue sky pitch from Boeing.

Good to know.

Plus:

Maybe what’s more important, is that the F-15X is being designed specifically to slot directly into the USAF’s deeply established F-15 infrastructure, even down to seamless pilot conversion. Our sources say it will only take one or two flights per F-15C pilot to convert to the F-15X for the air superiority mission, saving millions on retraining aircrews, not to mention ground crews, that are already intimately familiar with the Eagle.

It looks like the F-15X could help the Air Force fulfill its planned increase in fighter squadrons, affordably, and without the logistical strain of bringing in F-35s more quickly.