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The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

media.defense.gov

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Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#61

Post by stametseater »

jghn wrote: post #19
tomohawk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like the F35 over promises and under delivers compared to what it is expected to replace. The F15 comes with a 20,000 hour airframe, while the F35 comes with a 8000 hour airframe. The F15 can get to target much faster, much farther, and still have fuel to do something when it gets there. The F15 can carry 12 AIM-120s (or 24 depending), while the F35 can carry 4. The F15's a great interceptor. The F35 is a g…

Isn’t the F22 the successor to the F15, being air superiority fighters?

The F-15E and F-15EX (specifically these 'E' variants, aka "Strike Eagles") are multirole strike fighters. They're derived from an air superiority fighter and remain capable of filling that role, but being strike fighters they have a new emphasis on attacking ground targets with precision bombs. It is very similar to the way the F-14, the Navy's old air superiority fighter, was later turned into a strike fighter with the addition of LANTIRN (which the F-15E also got.) In addition to LANTIRN, the F-15E also gained a second seat for a weapon systems officer. Two seat F-15s had previously existed as trainers, but F-15s configured for air superiority normally have a single seat.

The F-22 is foremost an air superiority fighter and was intended to replace all the air superiority F-15s (but not the F-15E Strike Eagles.) However the USAF didn't get enough F-22s so they still have air superiority F-15s and will for some years to come.

Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#62

Post by jki275 »

hef19898 wrote: post #57
dralley wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is wrong. Conflicts between two powers where both have fighter jets are infrequent so of course BVR engagements are infrequent, so saying "it hasn't happened in 30 years" would be misleading even if it wasn't incorrect. But it is incorrect, because most engagements in Ukraine ever since the first month of the war have been at beyond visual range. And should a conflict ever break out between China and the US…

BVR engangements are happeneniing when the shooting side discovers the targeted side first. If they don't, it is visual range again. Obviously low observability aircraft, e.g. a F-35 or 22, have an advantage here. But then the other side can have AWACS to guide their attackers. And let's not forget, jets like a Rafale of Eurofighter, or even a F/A-18, have smaller radar signatures than a F-15. An once the stealth air…

The F4 didn't have a cannon, but the real problem in Vietnam was bad missiles, not lack of a gun, and the massive improvements in missile technology were what made the Phantom effective.

A gun is almost utterly useless in modern fighter aircraft, especially for air to air engagements, especially in a world where the AIM-9X and its opposing side equivalents exist. You will never, even WVR, even if you graduated TOPGUN, get into a position where you can use a gun against an opponent with an AIM-9X on the rail.

Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#63

Post by cpgxiii »

indymike wrote: post #56
cpgxiii wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole "multi-service aircraft can't work" meme has been going for essentially a century, and has been wrong just as long. The F-4 Phantom, probably deserving the title of greatest Western multi-role aircraft of the cold war, had long successful service with both USAF and USN (and USMC), with fewer inter-service airframe differences than between the F-35A and F-35C. Multi-service aircraft are totally workable, th…

> This whole "multi-service aircraft can't work" meme has been going for essentially a century, and has been wrong just as long. I'm not sure that's really the case. When we see successful cross-service adoption, it's because the aircraft simply was that so good the other branch saw a lot of value in buying it. So far the only program that has worked from inception is the F-35. The others failed to get traction in th…

My point is that multi-service aircraft are entirely possible, and have been all along. That several notable aircraft emerged as multi-service aircraft is all the more evidence that a multi-service aircraft (really, a family of tightly related aircraft) can be designed as such. The reason there are more USN->USAF success stories is that it is much easier to design an aircraft with the stresses of carrier operation in mind than it is to navalize a entirely ground-based design, and it is much easier for the USN to make the case politically that a USAF aircraft "can't possibly meet their requirements" than the reverse.

The USAF and USN are just incredibly unwilling to have to compromise to work with each other, and for most of the cold war had the budgets and supplier diversity to acquire entirely separately.

Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#64

Post by fm2606 »

mpclark wrote: post #60
YZF wrote: post #49

I got to see F-15s flying every day for almost three years pretty close up. They are amazing machines.

I get to see them flying at low level pretty much daily, as I live on the Mach Loop in Wales where they practice. The howl as they go over never gets old, though I guess I’d feel very differently if they weren’t just training.

You are right the sound never gets annoying. But...

In the early 90s I was a crew chief on the F15. I worked nights (what we called swing shift) and so slept during the day. Depending on which runway they were using the landing pattern would go right over the dorms. Some airmen in the dorms had car alarms with the sensitivity set so low that when the jets flew over the car alarms would go off. THAT got annoying!

Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#65

Post by dralley »

jki275 wrote: post #62
hef19898 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BVR engangements are happeneniing when the shooting side discovers the targeted side first. If they don't, it is visual range again. Obviously low observability aircraft, e.g. a F-35 or 22, have an advantage here. But then the other side can have AWACS to guide their attackers. And let's not forget, jets like a Rafale of Eurofighter, or even a F/A-18, have smaller radar signatures than a F-15. An once the stealth air…

The F4 didn't have a cannon, but the real problem in Vietnam was bad missiles, not lack of a gun, and the massive improvements in missile technology were what made the Phantom effective. A gun is almost utterly useless in modern fighter aircraft, especially for air to air engagements, especially in a world where the AIM-9X and its opposing side equivalents exist. You will never, even WVR, even if you graduated TOPGUN…

And training. There was almost no tactics developed on how to use missiles properly, and no training. Which compounded with the technical limitations of those early missiles.

Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#66

Post by bee_rider »

belter wrote: post #9
u320 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"F-35 is bad" is just an internet meme with little to support it.

We can revisit it after it is proven in combat, something that still has to happen.

“Proven in combat” seems like a tricky concept. I mean the F-15 has that incredible 104:0 record, but that is because

1) it was ahead of the rest of the world when it came out

2) it spent a lot of time fighting older MIGs

Which is to say, the circumstances requires to get a real peer fight for a US plane are quite rare. Thankfully!

Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#67

Post by onepointsixC »

ajmurmann wrote: post #27
icegreentea2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That tends to happen because military procurement is always a set of compromises, so there lies a tremendous amount of room for basically arguing about how to weigh the different requirements/criteria/mission sets. Also while the article vindicates Sprey's want of having a lightweight fighter, the reality is that while lightweight fighters did come, they quickly became exactly what Sprey would not have wanted (once t…

The Boyd biography by Robert Coram tells the story of the battle between the Fighter Mafia and the Bomber Generals. It also talks about, what I'd at best call regulatory capture. There was an outrageous series of events around procurement of the Bradley fighting vehicle. An excerpt from the craziness that ensued: "The Bradley was a tragedy waiting to happen. It was packed with ammunition, fuel, and people. The thinne…

>Really makes you wonder what procurement is actually about.

He seems clever on the surface level until you consider that not only did the existing M113 which the Bradley was to replace was worse by every single criteria that Boyd had selected, but so were the BMP-2's which the US Army was facing. If there wasn't a contemporary vehicle which could meet the specifications Boyd had set, and the Bradley was a improvement over the existing vehicles, one would think that it's pretty clear the requirements Boyd had set were wildly incorrect.

The Bradley's capability was later combat proven in the Gulf War as an incredibly effective vehicle.

Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#68

Post by bee_rider »

29athrowaway wrote: post #51

The Soviets had better aircraft, then pilots defected to the US and Americans reverse engineered them.

I don’t know if that is true or not, but if so, I guess it is a stirring endorsement of the idea of being a nice liberal democracy that people want to move to.

Re: The F-15 Eagle: Origins and Development, 1964-1972 [pdf]

#69

Post by [deleted] »

mpclark wrote: post #60
YZF wrote: post #49

I got to see F-15s flying every day for almost three years pretty close up. They are amazing machines.

I get to see them flying at low level pretty much daily, as I live on the Mach Loop in Wales where they practice. The howl as they go over never gets old, though I guess I’d feel very differently if they weren’t just training.

[deleted]
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