Efforts by the Obama administration to sell more than 80 F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia could generate new orders for Connecticut’s two largest jet-engine makers, The Hartford Courant reports.
One of them, Pratt & Whitney, produces engines for the aircraft in Middletown.
The other, Fairfield-based General Electric Co., also makes engines for the F-15.
Neither the government nor the Saudis have yet approached Pratt about supplying engines for the aircraft, a company spokeswoman said, but she said Pratt is pursuing the work.
Pratt’s F-100-series engines power about 80 F-15s already in use by the Royal Saudi Air Force, according to the company.
The proposed Saudi deal would be worth about $30 billion, according to a report Monday in The Wall Street Journal.
The Obama administration has not yet sought congressional approval for the sale, which has been in the works since the last Bush administration. Israel and its allies in Congress have questioned U.S. plans to provide further arms to the Saudis.
The U.S. is Saudi Arabia’s biggest supplier of weapons, according to the Congressional Research Service. Since 2005 alone, the U.S. federal government has approved more than $18.7 billion in “potential foreign military sales” to the Saudis, according to a June 14 CRS report.
The largest recent U.S. military sale to Saudi Arabia was a $9 billion deal for 72 F-15s in the 1990s, according to the report.
Fifteen Saudi nationals participated in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Saudi government has denied any knowledge of, or involvement with, them.
