Posted on 05/25/2017 5:40:38 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Boeing believes it has prospects and contracts for its F-15 Strike Eagle aircraft up until at least 2019 and likely beyond 2022.
The company has deliveries ongoing for Saudi Arabia, which has ordered 84 aircraft, as well as an undisclosed customer and, according to a company official, is about to sign another contract with an unnamed operator, believed to be Qatar, for up to 72 aircraft.
Over the last seven years the company has carried out major improvements to the original variant which has meant, according to officials, taking the life of the aircraft from 9,000 flight hours to 20,000 flight hours.
A key part of its effort to keep the aircraft relevant has been an investment of $5 billion by the company and suppliers over the past ten years.
Part of the programme has been the Advanced Missile Bomb Ejector Rack (AMBER) and the company is in negotiations to take the system into final flight tests.
AMBER is designed to broaden and simplify the F-15’s multirole function. In the escort role AMBER carries 16 AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, four AIM-9X short-range air-to-air and surface-to-air missile and two AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) tactical, air-to-surface missiles.
For precision strike, the aircraft carries 16 Small Diameter Bombs, one Joint Direct Attack Munition Extended Range, two HARM and 2 600 US gallon fuel tanks. For counter sea it carries two Harpoon over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile, two Miniature Air-Launched Decoy, eight AIM-120, two AIM-9X and two HARM.
Boeing is carrying out an upgrade of legacy F-15 aircraft to extend life and raise capability with an improved processor and weapons outfit.
Over the last ten years, with South Korea and other customers, the company has improved aircraft to keep it relevant including adding APG-63 AESA radar and in the future the APG-82 and joint helmet mounted cueing systems.
The latest generation aircraft will be fitted with new generation IRST, Digital Electronic Warfare System (DEWS), improved GE engine and Sniper targeting pod. The company conducted a competition of IRST systems in April-May and, while the company wouldn’t disclose details, two of the systems are believed to be from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Boeing started delivery of the Advanced Strike Eagle to Saudi Arabia in December and has now reached double digits in delivered aircraft and deliveries will be completed over the next three years.
A company official, unsurprisingly, delivered some pushback against a ‘stealth overall’ philosophy and fifth generation aircraft.
‘The F-15, by its very nature not being [stealthy], I can hang things on my aircraft quickly, cheaply and more easily than an aircraft set up for stealth,’ the official said.
‘I can prove out technology on the F-15, that is the benefit of the platform. We have a lot of power and space available, we can do lots of things more quickly than other 5th generation aircraft.
‘If you consider that it is asymmetric threats being faced most at the moment, stealth is at its best facing conventional military power such as other fighter aircraft and powerful radars whereas a more conventional aircraft may be considered better at defeating asymmetric threats.
‘We have the only air superiority aircraft in production in the US today. We are running at 1.25 aircraft a month and we have the capacity to increase that and we have plans to do that if the customer demand is there.’
]In the escort role AMBER carries 16 AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, four AIM-9X short-range air-to-air]
Wow - 20 air-to-air.
There really aren’t any stealthy aircraft that the F-15 needs to worry about. The PAK-FA and J-20 are just prototypes right now.
Against anything else, the battle will go to the better pilot.
Stealth in the air-to-air arena is a non-starter. Stealth is meant to prevent/delay early warning and detection. Once a Target Tracker/Illuminator has you, stealth tech is worthless. The airman at the stick and counter-measures are what saves the aircraft.
Agree mostly, but there are missiles we have that do not need TTR or HPRF, hence firing the missile and no bad guy will see it coming.
“The company has deliveries ongoing for Saudi Arabia, which has ordered 84 aircraft, as well as an undisclosed customer and, according to a company official, is about to sign another contract with an unnamed operator, believed to be Qatar, for up to 72 aircraft.?”
The Fraud paid OUR cash to build terrorists’ offices in Qatar, sent planeload(s?) of cash to them, and armed anyone who wanted to kill Christians.
Interesting number of attack aircraft Boeing is going to sell the moslems....
My friend the ex AF fighter pilot has told me that even when he was on active duty (and he has friends still "in the business") the ROE were such that stealth tech and standoff weapons were almost useless to them. Their ROE invariably required a positive ID, which generally meant closing to visual or camera range. That close in, stealth isn't going to prevent a detection. Good airmanship and tactics win the day. So a beast like the -15 that hasn't made compromises in maneuverability for stealth is probably a much better choice - for the way we seem to be using our fighters today.
Optical tracking. It is what took down O'Grady in Bosnia. Stealth reduces the Radar cross-section, thus reducing the possibility of EW Radars to detect. Once a TTR finds you, no current amount of stealth tech can defeat it. Radar absorbing materials help reduce detection and can quite possibly break a TTR lock but it is quite difficult and the F-117 could not maneuver to break a lock. The newer F-35's are built to maneuver so they might be able to. Hope their RAWR gear is current.
That is absolutely incorrect.
I was leading a four ship of F-35s on a strike against 4th Gen adversaries, F-16s and F/A-18s."THE MOMENT PILOTS FIRST REALIZED THE F-35 WAS SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY"We fought our way in, we mapped the target, found the target, dropped JDAMs on the target and turned around and fought our way out.
All the targets got hit, nobody got detected, and all the adversaries died. I thought, yes, this works, very, very, very well.
Never detected, nobody had any idea we were out there.
By the way, the pilot quoted was flying the much-malined STOVL F-35B Marine variant.
malined = maligned, sorry.
You obviously have no clue about air-to-air engagements. The strike lead was NOT DETECTED, which means Early Warning (EW) was not set off. That is the entire philosophy on which stealth aircraft technology is built. EW Radars hand off targets of interest to Target Tracking Radars (TTR) by sending bearing, range, and altitude information to the Radar crews. Then the target is prosecuted based upon their profile. Once within weapons range, the TTR illuminates the target with a Constant Wave (CW) Radar which reflects energy that is tracked by a guided missile, or a TTR sends tracking information to the missile via data link.
As an Electronics Counter-Measures Officer (ECMO), I have been embedded with strike groups and we used our jamming pods to deny EW Radars the ability to acquire targets and thus no hand-off to TTRs.
The entire point is to avoid EW detection. Once a TTR has a lock, stealth no longer applies.
The entire point of stealth is to not return enough energy to the EW or TTR radars for detection. As another data point, clearly the air-to-air radars carried by F-16s and F-18s (and from other sources, F-15s) aren't sufficient to detect either F-22s or F-35s (or for that matter, B-2s). Our stealth aircraft were built to successfully penetrate heavily defended airspace.
IR detection is another story, and I expect if the US can control the operational tempo most stealth missions will occur during overcast conditions. It is also true that only the F-22 and B-2 have all-aspect stealth, so F-35s may be detectable by radar during egress.
IR is a good point as the F-22’s and F-35’s were designed to have minimal IR signatures. As for the fighter Radars, their scan and beam width are too narrow for EW which is why the strike you linked was successful. I have successfully engaged F-18’s that could not see us even at the merge. I saw the pilots head buried in the cockpit as they flew past us. They were never meant for EW which is why Ground Controlled Intercept (GCI) is critical for the initial air-to-air engagement.
Everyone in the business knows a receding target is not a viable target. A/C on egress are rarely pursued.
Don’t need TTR with certain missiles, detect with search and launch and the missile does the work. . .flies out most of the way then “opens” it eyes (TTR) just prior to impact.
Cool stuff.
Yup, the JSF has made a lot of promises but I’ll withhold judgment on that platform.
“Their ROE invariably required a positive ID, which generally meant closing to visual or camera range”
There are other electronic ID methods that do not require closure anywhere near a merge (former A-10 and F-15E driver speaking).
ROE is a “killer” and does takeaway some of the stealth advantage. . .but maybe with Trump the ROE will be modified. . .
“We fought our way in, we mapped the target, found the target, dropped JDAMs on the target and turned around and fought our way out. “
If you weren’t detected, who the hell were you fighting?
“If you weren’t detected, who the hell were you fighting?”
They “killed” all the Gen-4 aircraft on the way out of the area...
It’s still a fight even if you cold-cock your opponent.
Still need EW to know if a threat exists. Electro-optics and terminal phase illuminators are game changers during the end game but without EW, hard to find the threat.
Just how long can Boeing milk McDonnell Douglas products?
“It’s still a fight even if you cold-cock your opponent.”
I think pilots used to call that “gunning their brains out.”
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