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

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

#81

Post by kevbin »

VLM wrote: post #26
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…

Wikipedia disagrees and claims the last BVR missile engagement at BVR range was 30 years ago and BVR missiles are usually combat ineffective. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond-visual-range_missile BVR is kind of a cold war tech; "its WW3 shoot down all the soviet bombers" it doesn't have another mission at this time. To risky to use.

Indiana Jones captures the benefits of stand-off weapons here https://youtu.be/vdnA-ESWcPs?t=120

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

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> BVR engangements are happeneniing when the shooting side discovers the targeted side first.

Well, yes, also, most within-visual-range engagements probably also happen that way. Targeting the enemy first is kind of a big deal in air-to-air combat, and he who does it is probably going to be by virtue of doing so the shooting side.

> Not to forget, a F-22 or F-35 carrying serious load outs, tanks l, missiles, bombs, is pretty mich non-stealthy any way.

While both can carry external stores, the reason that they have internal weapons bays with significant capacity is specifically so that they can conduct combat operations while maintaining stealth. The tactical environment will determine how they are configured for any given mission.

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

#83

Post by giantrobot »

belter wrote: post #37
FridayoLeary wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have multiple (unproven but everyone knows who did it) strikes against iranian positions in syria and even in iran itself, it is rumoured. The ability to be invisible to radar is an absolute gamechanger.

That just make it difficult to lock on with weapons. They are not invisible and any radar operator would tell you that if they would be allowed... "...Stealth designs minimize an aircraft's radar signature, delaying and sometimes even preventing detection, but because of the physical requirements for tactical jets, stealth fighters can be easily spotted by certain low-frequency radar bands. In fact, it's not even unc…

While you're not wrong that stealthy ≠ invisible, a proper mission design will render the aircraft effectively invisible to air defenses.

If you've got an active radar system you'll bounce signals off anything in the sky. Your ability to actually detect those things is based on the strength of the return and sensitivity/signal processing of the system. Big things can be detected hundreds of miles away, small things only tens of miles away. To protect some high value target you string together multiple radar systems to provide overlapping coverage. With enough systems you can have an unbroken wall of radar directing defending aircraft and SAMs.

Stealth lets a big thing (a jet) pretend to be a small thing in the view of an air defense system, essentially cutting the detection range of radar. This means your unbroken radar coverage that would work for an F-15 now has a bunch of holes because each radar can only detect an F-22 twenty miles out instead of two hundred. Your radar is also further compromised because the stand-off range of anti-radiation missiles is outside the range you can detect and intercept the jets carrying them.

Being able to see a stealth aircraft after it's fired a weapon to kill you isn't super helpful. A stealth aircraft can also fly through the artificial holes it made in your radar coverage and blow up the thing you're protecting and you only find out about it after the fact.

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

#84

Post by greedo »

cpgxiii wrote: post #54
coredog64 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with your thesis, but: The F-4 was built for the Navy and the other services saw what a great plane it was and bought in. The F-35 is intended as a lightweight multi role aircraft, so it’s full of compromises already. The F-111A/B as a shared USAF/USN aircraft is much harder as there’s not as much margin for compromise in something that is supposed to be the pinnacle of current performance.

I'd say the F-111 is a particularly odd case, given the vastly different initial requirements involved. To be clear, everything that made the F-111 a great long-range interdictor for the USAF would have have also made for a great long-range interceptor and strike platform for the USN. It wouldn't have made a good air superiority fighter, and the experience over Vietnam made it clear that this capability was still ver…

The USN didn't need an air-superiority fighter when they were working on the F-111B, they needed a fleet defense fighter capable of lifting a huge radar and missile set. When the terrible engines in the B model gave them an out, they took it and moved forward with the Tomcat (which used the same engines and weapons set). Little did they realize the TF-30 would remain a terrible engine for so long, and replacing it with F110s would take almost two decades.

I'm not sure that the F-22 would have ever worked for the USN either. I think that its stealth coating are just too fragile for a marine environment. And the USMC could never afford the AH-64.

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

#85

Post by greedo »

bee_rider wrote: post #66
belter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

3) Flown by some of the best combat pilots in the world (at the time).

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

#86

Post by greedo »

tomohawk wrote: post #16
u320 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

You try flying an F-15 with 12 to 24 Slammers (and bags since you'll have so much drag. That's going to fly like a pig. Just because Boeing does some demo of it to sell more airframes doesn't mean it's going to be used that way.

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

#87

Post by greedo »

zokier wrote: post #80
bee_rider wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

spoiler: its largely not true. There was single significant defection before the introduction of the "teen" fighters, codenamed HAVE DOUGHNUT, and even it was not actually Soviet (an Iraqi pilot defected to Israel). All the other defections (which there were several) happened using old/non-fighter aircraft (iirc there were several MiG-15/17/19 which were essentially Korean War era designs), or happened after the teen…

He might be talking about Belenko's defection with a MIG-25 to Hokkaido in the early 1970s. Though neither aircraft is really related to the other except in very basic visual sensibilities (twin engine, twin tail).

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

#88

Post by zokier »

kevbin wrote: post #79
29athrowaway wrote: post #51

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

I'd be curious to know which aircraft were actually better than their US contemporaries and by which criteria they'd be judged better. The Mig-25 seems like a good example of a Soviet aircraft considered better than its US contemporaries, at the time. Misunderstanding and misinformation let the US to think they were far, far behind the Soviet Union. Viktor Belenko cleared that up! It was a plane good at just one thin…

I don't think it's controversial to say that MiG-21 compared favorably to its contemporaries when introduced. Afaik it successfully fought off newer, much more expensive, American F-4s in Vietnam war.

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

#89

Post by zokier »

greedo wrote: post #87
zokier wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

spoiler: its largely not true. There was single significant defection before the introduction of the "teen" fighters, codenamed HAVE DOUGHNUT, and even it was not actually Soviet (an Iraqi pilot defected to Israel). All the other defections (which there were several) happened using old/non-fighter aircraft (iirc there were several MiG-15/17/19 which were essentially Korean War era designs), or happened after the teen…

He might be talking about Belenko's defection with a MIG-25 to Hokkaido in the early 1970s. Though neither aircraft is really related to the other except in very basic visual sensibilities (twin engine, twin tail).

And F-15 had its first flight four years before the MiG-25 defection. So unless they had time machine at hand its unlikely that it had major influence on F-15 design

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

#90

Post by stametseater »

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…

Note that although the F-4 did not initially have an internal gun, the F-4E variant did acquire an internal M61 20mm gattling cannon and a few kills were made with this gun during the Vietnam War. Also, earlier Phantoms could be equipped with an M61 in a gun pod slung under the jet, and some kills were made with those as well.

From what I understand, these guns were desired by pilots but the results in practice were mixed. And apparently ground crews hated dealing with the gun pods.

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