[yarddog]

I saw a program just a few days ago which said the F-15 had the best combat record of any fighter, ever.

[CCGuy]

Best combat record, yes. But the most capable in the world right now is the F-22.

Unfortunately that assembly line was shut down far too early in order to save the F-35 that is a slow-motion train wreck.

[2CAVTrooper]

Yep.

IIRC over 100 ATA kills with zero losses.

[mbynack]

I saw a program just a few days ago which said the F-15 had the best combat record of any fighter, ever.

The F-15 has shot down 102 enemy aircraft without a single loss in air to air combat.

I was the superintendent of the F-15 Pilot Training School at Tyndall AFB from 1992-1996. It's an awesome airplane. There were very few aircraft that equal it and the pilots were the best the AF had. One of my co-workers was a pilot. He was the number one graduate from the AF Academy that year. He was the number one graduate of his undergraduate flying program. He was the number one graduate of the Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals program. And he was a top graduate of the AF Fighter Weapon's School.

Some of the big advantages that the F-15 had over the F-16 were the two engines versus one for the F-16. The redundancy helped get many F-15's home in situations where an F-16 would have been lost. The F-15 had a more powerful radar, allowing it to see farther and they could be attacking an F-16 before the F-16 ever saw them.

I'm sure that off platform radar and better weapons may have leveled the playing field a little, but the F-15 is still pretty awesome.