Officers from the Polish air force visited Boeing’s fighter delivery centre in the USA to test out the airframer’s latest F-15EX Eagle II multi-role fighter, which Poland is evaluating for purchase.

Three Polish officers, two of whom are pilots, travelled to the site near St. Louis where Boeing assembles and delivers the F-15EX and other tactical aircraft.

The delegation included Major General Ireneusz Nowak, a Lockheed Martin F-16 pilot who serves as inspector of the Polish air force, responsible for modernisation initiatives.

Boeing says the event included briefings on the twin-engined jet’s operational capabilities, integration with Poland’s fifth-generation fighters, local sustainment potential, training opportunities and economic impacts.

“The two Polish pilots experienced air dominance capabilities during their F-15EX familiarisation flights,” Boeing said on 2 October.

Rob Novotny, Boeing’s head of business development for the F-15 line, revealed in a post on LinkedIn that the demonstration included two sorties in the two-seat F-15EX at speeds over Mach 1.5 and at altitudes exceeding 40,000ft.

One of the two flights carried air force inspector Nowak, who will be a key figure in any F-15EX procurement decision by Warsaw.

Poland is in the process of replacing its ageing fleet of F-16Cs with Lockheed’s fifth-generation F-35A stealth fighter.

The first of those jets rolled off Lockheed’s Fort Worth assembly line in January, with Polish air force operators starting flight training in February at Ebbing Air National Guard Base in Arkansas.

Warsaw eventually plans to field 32 conventional take-off and landing F-35As, which will operate locally with the moniker “Husarz”. That fleet is scheduled to reach full operational capability by 2030.

However, as part of its sweeping military modernisation effort, Poland is considering a separate acquisition of F-15EXs.

Although lacking the inherent low-observability features of the F-35, Boeing has positioned the F-15EX as an ideal partner for the single-engined stealth jet, with a number of unique advantages.

The Eagle II’s twin-engined configuration gives it a massive 13,400kg (29,500lb) payload, meaning it can carry 12 air-to-air missiles or three long-range air-to-ground cruise missiles.

When operating with internally-stored weapons in the stealth configuration, the F-35A’s weapons payload is just over 8,000kg.

That difference has led Boeing to highlight the potential for F-15EXs to provide an extra airborne arsenal to back up F-35s.

“The aircraft is inherently un-stealthy, so for us it has a different mission objective. It’s really about oversized weapons, payload, range and being complementary to a fighter force,” Steve Parker, the chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, told FlightGlobal at the Paris air show in June.

“It is very complementary to fifth-generation fighters, and it will be the same for sixth-generation,” Parker added.

Boeing and BAE Systems have also developed an advanced electronic warfare countermeasures system for the F-15EX, called the AN/ALQ-250 Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System, which gives the aircraft a fighting chance against modern air defences and even fifth-generation fighters.

The 2024 annual report from the Pentagon’s Directorate of Operational Test and Evaluation assessed the F-15EX as “operationally effective” in an air-superiority role, even when matched against fifth-generation aircraft.

“The F-15EX was able to detect and track all threats at advantageous ranges, use onboard and off-board systems to identify them, and deliver weapons while surviving,” the report says. That evaluation included flights against “surrogate fifth-generation adversary aircraft” on both defensive and offensive counter-air missions.

“We had an amazing scorecard coming through from the test community… which I think caught a lot of people by surprise, but didn’t surprise us,” Parker noted following the report’s release.

That type of feedback will likely be critical in securing any sale with Poland, which will be on the frontline of any conflict between Russia and NATO, facing a full range of air threats from east.

Nowak has previously suggested he would like to see the Polish air force field up to 160 combat aircraft – equivalent to 10 tactical squadrons.

The service has ample room to grow if Warsaw moves forward with plans to phase out its Soviet-era RAC MiG-29 fighters (23) and its recently retired Sukhoi Su-22 ground-attack aircraft. The Eurofighter Typhoon is also a contender for a potential air superiority fighter buy.

With 32 F-35As and 48 Korea Aerospace Industries FA-50 light-attack fighters on order, there is still a substantial gap to meet Nowak’s target.

A potential F-15EX acquisition has been floated at 32 or 48 aircraft – enough to equip two or three combat squadrons.

Boeing is still hunting for its first overseas customer for the Eagle II, with Poland likely the strongest contender.

Parker has also suggested there is strong interest in the type from unspecified operators in the Middle East.

Likely candidates are existing operators of earlier-model F-15s, including Saudi Arabia and Israel. 

Saudi Arabia operates 232 F-15s, 86 of which are relatively new F-15SAs with an average age of only eight years. Riyadh’s 80 F-15C/D fighters, however, are likely in need of replacement, with an average age of 41 years. It also has 66 F-15Ss with an average age of 25 years.

Israel has 87 F-15s, the majority of which are older F-15A/Bs and C/Ds. The country has reportedly issued a formal request for 25 F-15EXs, though no sale has been finalised.

Elsewhere in the region, Qatar operates 36 new F-15QAs variants, upon which the F-15EX is based.

Another potential buyer is Indonesia, which in 2023 signed a memorandum of understanding with Boeing covering a non-binding commitment for up to 24 F-15EXs.