Posted on 09/08/2022 5:08:15 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
In July 2020 ,the United States Air Force contracted with Boeing for the delivery of new F-15 fighters, to be dubbed the F-15EX. The idea behind the F-15EX is remarkable in its simplicity: We have a great fighter plane, but our existing fleet is old, so why not just buy some new ones?
(Excerpt) Read more at 19fortyfive.com ...
It’s a very good plane. Its Manufacturing and operating cost are much lower than the F35. Also stealth does not matter nearly as much on defense as offense (no ground fire).
So they would just fine playing defense of the USA.
Which tells you a lot about the next war the pentagon is preparing for.
Exactly.
Each F-15EX can carry nearly 30,000 pounds of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. The F-35 can only carry 5,700 pounds, according to F-35 manufacturer Lockheed-Martin.
Comparing this to WWII, The B-17 Flying Fortress had a 4,000-pound bomb load, typical for long missions, though the B-17 could carry up to 8,000 pounds internally for shorter distances at lower altitudes.
The F-15 can also carry the B-61 nuclear bomb. The Mod 12 variant of the B-61 was just released.
I know a particular country's leadership has been threatening to use nukes recently, but a raid with a squadron of F-117's providing wild weasel strikes followed by F-15EX with Mod 12 would really prove that to be the world's worst threat ever.
This has NOTHING to do with the F-15EX or the USAF.
This is about Boeing who produces them. Boeing pays off the democrats bigly. Boeing is suffering greatly because commercial aviation is way down. Boeing is living off its defense revenue and needs the F-15EX badly.
If I remember the article, Obama ordered the toolings torched “for national security” and for “national security reasons” no one kept blue prints of the stuff.
I trained in an F4E(s) reconnaissance plane briefly but never flew it “for real”.
This had a special engine for Israel that made it into not much more than a human guided missile. No stealth, no maneuvering, just fast.
Felt like landing a moped with a giant truck Diesel engine.
You guys used to buzz us down in Bruneau Canyon and up on the desert floor.
Biden wants to use the F15 against us deplorables and irredeemables. He said as much, the evil SOB.
I am not an Air Force vet, but my understanding is that the F-15EX would serve two main functions:
First, in traditional lower threat modes as weapons platforms much as they are used today.
Second, they are “4.5 Gen aircraft to be used as an armed extension via data linking to 5th Gen aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35, both of whom have extensive passive sensor capability that will allow them to remain concealed while surveilling a large area, extended even further to the spheres being occupied in extended formations by the “4.5 Gen” aircraft such as the F-15EX which will have less need to be stealthy, and may be armed with long range air-to-air missiles which can be targeted via datalink.
At least that was the explanation I heard a couple of years ago. Basically, when not serving more traditional roles in lower threat environments, when in a higher threat environment, they may operate more remotely (safely) and be directed and have target information sent to them for weapons engagement via datalink...the 5th Gen fighters serving as force-multiplying mini-AWACS planes.
Someone may have a more recent, or better justification given by the Air Force for these.
Hahahahahahahahahaha...I’ll bet there was black smoke all over the sky and a LOT of noise...those J79’s were BEASTLY engines...:)
Ah. I love me some Phantoms.
By the way, the “4.5 Gen” designation is mine, not, I think, a formal one anywhere. Basically, some additional stealthy features with lots of software capability included.
The very last thing I did in the AF was a 1 1/2-hour flight in an F-15. In a very few minutes after take-off I was inverted at 50,000 ft, over mach 1, and right over the airfield I took off from. Then the fun started.
It was very cool!
With Gates recommendation. They didn’t like the a/c.
Regardless of current capabilities, a beautiful and legendary aircraft.
To me, like looking at late 60’s muscle cars...:)
Who will fly them? That aircraft is too complex to lower pilot standards. I read they are having problems filling the ranks of the US Air Force Academy where most of the top pilots have come from in the past.
“You lucky b*****d. You lucky, lucky b*****d!”
LOL...I spoke back around 2012 (I think) to an AF pilot who had started out flying A-4 Skyhawks in the USMC, transitioned to the Air Force, and ended up in the ANG. He had flown every fighter in the US inventory except the F-22 (he was flying F-16’s when he retired due to the policies of the Obama Administration)
When I asked if he had ever flown against an F-22, he said he had in an exercise. I asked him what it was like.
His exact words were: “It was like being a baby seal.”
The IF-I-Sex Fighter? Huh?
I think what we need are new airframe fighters like the best versions of the F-15/F-16 and F-18 with updated radars, central computer control, avionics, EW and warning systems are needed. Maybe with some updates that minimally modify the Radar Cross Section of each to the extent practicable.
AFAIC, the F-35 is an overpriced and unsustainable commodity given some of the coming engagements they may be involved with against China, et al.....Why? Because the numbers that will be required isn’t something we can afford.
Not Air Force but as an historian there have been many cases where the decision to build a superlative weapon turns out to be wrong, dead wrong (my opinion)! Consider this burning example from WW2 of Japan building the super battleships, Yamato & Musashi.
For Japan, given its poor resource position, the decision for these two battleship was the last gasp of the Mahan doctrine and the desire/expectation of a ‘gun shot’ battle similar to the 1905 Tsushima Straits battle. This was, by most analysts, the thought & reason for the 1942 Battle of Midway Island. A fleet v fleet battle that would give Japan a near complete force advantage for another 6 months, if not for longer, to isolate Australia and to push into the Indian Ocean.
For the same cost in building, Japan might have been better to build aircraft carriers. Carriers had a much better ‘reach’ than even the largest battleship gun and for a war theater the size of the Pacific, that is the weapon that hindsight calls for.
As for the F-15 generation of fighter (4th generation), it is no longer the ‘air superiority’ that it was in the 80s, but it is still a very capable platform. Then there is the truism; “Quantity has a quality of its own!”
If buying these is a lot cheaper than buying the new F-22s and F-35s, and I'm guessing it is, then I think it's a good idea because the F-15 is still one helluva good airplane and can still defeat most of the planes in anybody else's Air Force. And with upgraded electronics it'll be even better.
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