Lockheed Martin received a $253 million contract agreement to begin work on F-15SA pilot and maintenance training systems for the Royal ...
Lockheed Martin received a $253 million contract agreement to begin work on F-15SA pilot and maintenance training systems for the Royal Saudi Air Force. The technologies will provide a comprehensive ground-based training environment for Saudi Arabia’s F-15SA modernization program.
Pilots will complete air-to-air combat, air-to-surface missions, air combat maneuvers and tactical intercepts with 360-degree full mission trainers. As a first for F-15 training, the systems will feature a single dome over the dual-seat cockpit to enable crew coordination training. Lockheed Martin will also deliver egress, avionics and desktop trainers for procedure training by pilots.
For maintainers, Lockheed Martin will provide virtual systems to enable training without the actual aircraft. The systems include basic maintenance, landing gear and arresting hook, armament, flight controls and jet fuel starter trainers.
Lockheed Martin will deliver the training systems by 2020. Work will be performed in Akron, Ohio, and Orlando, Fla.
Under a contract in 2011, acquisition of 84 new F-15SA fighter jets, replacing the Kingdom’s aging F-15C/D fighters, and the upgrading 70 existing F-15S strike fighters in service with the RSAF, bringing them to the same level of the new F-15SA were signed.
The new F-15SA and the upgraded F-15S will include the APG-63(v)3 radar from Raytheon, the latest AESA radar developed for the Eagle. These aircraft will also carry the AN/AAQ-33 Sniper Targeting pod and Tiger Eye Navigation Pod (3rd Generation LANTIRN). On reconnaissance missions the UTC DB-110 Reconnaissance Pod will be used. The Saudi acquisition represents the first application of DB-110 on the F-15 platform.
To further improve air combat capability the new Saudi Eagles will be equipped with Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing Systems (JHMCS) and AN/AAS-42 Infrared Search and Track (IRST) Systems.
The fighters will also receive the latest version of the Sidewinder AIM-9X short range air/air missiles and AIM-120C/7 AMRAAM missiles.
For air/surface attack the new Eagles will carry mostly precision guided weapons, including AGM-84 Block II Harpoon anti-ship missiles, AGM-88B HARM anti radiation missiles, 500 and 2,000 lb versions of enhanced Paveway II and III Dual Mode Laser/Global Positioning System (GPS) Guided bombs, 2,000 lbs JDAM GPS guided weapons, and CBU-105D/B Sensor Fuzed Weapons (SFW) utilizing Wind Corrected Munitions Dispensers (WCMD).
The contract is managed through a foreign military sales agreement by the U.S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Lockheed Martin has served as the Royal Saudi Air Force’s F-15 training partner for more than three decades. The company also provides the service’s weapons systems officer training program. In addition to delivering training systems to Saudi Arabia, Lockheed Martin's F-15 training technologies are currently in operation by the United States, Israel and Japan.
