Poland Confirms 32 More F-35A as It Joins Boeing's USD 131 Billion F-15 Eagle Crest Vehicle
Warsaw, 25 August 2026
Key points
- Deputy defence minister Paweł Bejda confirmed in parliament that Poland intends to order 32 more F-35A — the Husarz — answering a question from former minister Mariusz Błaszczak
- Bejda stated the purchase involves neither abandonment nor reduced funding for other modernisation programmes: a budget assurance to a predecessor, not a contract
- Separately, the US Department of War awarded Boeing a USD 131.23 billion sole-source vehicle for the F-15 Eagle Crest programme on 24 August, an ordering period running to August 2031 and extendable to 2036
- Poland is named among the vehicle's foreign military sales customers, alongside Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Singapore and Indonesia — though neither Poland nor Indonesia currently flies the F-15
- Appearing on the vehicle is eligibility to order, not an order; no Polish statement stands behind an F-15 purchase, and Warsaw's parallel SAFE-financed Piorun framework, signed Monday, does not cover fighter aircraft
Poland confirmed on Monday that it intends to buy 32 more F-35A, and the same week appeared as a named customer on a USD 131.23 billion Boeing vehicle for the F-15 — two announcements that stack three different levels of commitment without adding up to a second Polish fighter type.
Bejda's answer to Błaszczak in parliament was a statement of intent and a budget assurance, not a signed contract: the 32 additional F-35A would come without cutting other modernisation lines. Warsaw already operates the type under the Husarz programme and has drawn on US foreign military financing to fund it. The F-15 Eagle Crest award is a separate instrument entirely — an indefinite-delivery, sole-source ceiling that lets the US Air Force and its allies place orders over more than a decade without buying a fixed quantity at signing. Poland's presence on the customer list makes it eligible to order under the vehicle; it does not commit Warsaw to anything, and no Polish government statement has followed the award.
The two threads meet only in eligibility, not in funding. Warsaw's SAFE-financed Piorun framework with Mesko, signed the same Monday, draws on the EU's defence-loan instrument for European-made air-defence missiles; an F-35A follow-on, being an American aircraft, is neither eligible for SAFE nor drawn on it. If a second fighter type were ever ordered under the F-15 vehicle, it would run on the same national-budget and US financing track as the existing Husarz buy, not the European one.
Confirmation, assurance and eligibility are not the same act, and only the middle one carries a number attached to a date. As Signal No. 131 recorded, Poland's F-35A fleet is already mid-induction at Łask under the Husarz programme financed partly through US foreign military financing; a further 32 aircraft would extend that programme rather than open a rival one, and the Eagle Crest vehicle's relevance to Warsaw is a standing option, not a decision Poland has taken.
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