A US Air Force web site appears to confirm the blockbuster Boeing F-15SA sale to Saudi Arabia. [UPDATE: Within two hours of my blog post, the USAF removed the image from the web site.] The picture shown above was released to a USAF web site at 3:31pm on 28 December. That means the image appeared several hours before the Associated Press reported the deal would be announced soon by the Obama Administration. So far, the White House has not formally announced the order has been signed by the Saudi government.
Negotiations over the deal have dragged on for more than a year. The US government notified Congress in October last year that the Saudis had requested a possible $30 billion F-15 order. It would include 84 new F-15SAs with active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and AESA installations on the Saudi air force's 70 F-15SAs. But a deal was not signed for more than a year. In October, Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney assured market analysts that a deal could be imminent, explaining without elaborating that the death of Saudi Crown Prince Sultan Ibn Abdul-Aziz could accelerate the process.
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