F-15EX

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... sia-143867

I know this is an old article from the national interest.
But I want to pick your brains for a minute.
We aren't talking about defection ranges or Sustained turn, those horses are dead.
We arnt talking about The stealthy factor, that horse has been beat to h*ll and back.
I want to focus mainly on aquisition cost and CPFH.
I want to focus on weither or not the F-15 is a good deal or not.
Here are facts.

1. The F-15Ex and the F-35 are basically the same cost.
2. The F-15s numbers seem lower on paper 35k per hour versus 29k per hour.
3. The F-15 is a competant weapons truck but is not stealthy at all, and could be relegated to flying figure 8s over conus.
For the record, I am skeptical about the F-15 having a lower CPFH,

For the cost of the F-15 why didnt the U.S.A F
Buy F-16sv or a cheaper alternative.
You could have Got alot more planes, and not have burden of having 2 engine?

See other thread on F-15EX. This has already been addressed ad nauseum.

Boeing needed an active production line for at least one fighter. That essentially answers your last question. It wasn't going to be the F-16 given it's a Lockheed bird, and they're already building the F-35. In other words, corporate welfare..

Having said that, LM has set the goal of a $25,000 CPFH by 2025. "25 by 25" as it were. For the record, I think they'll not only do it but do it ahead of schedule too, much like the per unit cost falling well below $80 million. At that point, the decision to acquire more than 100 F-15EX's is going to be looking mighty dumb, especially when Boeing goes to bid on PCA/F/A-XX.

My thinking is that they''ll probably win at least one of those, or at the very least be a major sub-contractor. So they'll still be in the fighter business in some capacity, F-15EX new builds or not...

National Interest and this particular author now repost old articles without pointing out that they are in-fact mostly a reprint of an article they wrote years ago. There was one earlier this week with a headline along the lines of “Test Pilot: the F-35B is a Piece of Crap”.

Well, it was largely a reprint of a 2013 article, and obtw, the test pilot he quoted (an even older guy than I) died in 2017.

This is what substitutes for ‘journalism’ in the 21st century...

Pressure on the US Defense Budget is going to increase dramatically in the coming years. Which, is going to put extreme pressure on programs like the F-15EX.


DoD must identify its ‘crown jewels’ in preparation for fiscal uncertainty


As the attention of Congress and senior leaders in the Department of Defense are rightly focused on mitigating the coronavirus pandemic, it is not too soon to begin planning for how the nation and the DoD can recover from this crisis.


The much-needed $2.2 trillion relief package recently passed by Congress — and whatever additional spending is appropriated in the coming weeks and months — comes on top of a preexisting budget deficit of more than $1 trillion for the current fiscal year. When this crisis eventually subsides, the deficit will be at an all-time high and the pressure to cut spending — including defense spending — may also be high. Now is the time to start thinking about the steps the Defense Department can take to better position itself for the post-coronavirus fiscal environment.


Historically, higher deficits put long-term pressure on the defense budget. We saw this in the mid-1980s when the federal deficit peaked at nearly $0.5 trillion (in today’s dollars). Congress reacted at the time by passing the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act. This law put in place a set of deficit caps and created an enforcement mechanism known as sequestration. From fiscal 1985 to fiscal 1991, the national defense budget fell by 19 percent in real terms as part of these deficit reduction efforts. And when the Cold War ended, it fell another 18 percent through FY98.


During the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, deficits spiked to $1.7 trillion (in today’s dollars). This led Congress to enact the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resurrected sequestration and put caps on the defense and nondefense parts of the discretionary budget. Despite a series of budget deals that amended the budget caps, the combination of the BCA and the drawdown of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in a 22 percent real decline in the national defense budget from FY10 to FY15.


The Defense Department was caught flatfooted in 2013 because of its stubborn refusal to plan for sequestration. It muddled through the across-the-board cuts imposed by sequestration that year by furloughing civilian employees, canceling training and exercises, and deferring maintenance on equipment and facilities. To make matters worse, many of these actions did not save money in the long run; they merely deferred expenses and made long-term costs higher than they would have been otherwise................

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/com ... -troubles/

Yep, the F-15EX faces a very uncertain future and will likely be squeezed out after 8-16 production versions are funded. Lord knows what they'll do with them if they're built, not going to do the USAF any good. They'll probably be put into a test program carrying outsized hypersonic weapons, just to see if they're compatible with the F-15E airframe.

Otherwise, expect F-35 orders/squadrons to dominate in the next decade. It's the only/best choice, at least until such time as PCA/F/A-XX gets here..

“We were so confident this jet was going to perform well we went straight to the ATP — maximum afterburner and pulled-up on a 'Viking' — and I had zero problem with that profile and proved it from the start. We went out to what’s called the “Mac North” airspace and executed some flight control checks to make sure the aircraft rig was correct. We climbed up and made sure the jet fuel starter worked on the way up. We got up to 40,000 feet and pushed out to Mach 2. That [speed] is a CFT [Conformal Fuel Tank] limitation. If it was a clean jet we’d go out to Mach 2.5. We did engine checks at 40,000 feet, at 30,000 feet, and then we came down to 20,000 feet and we intentionally shut down the perfectly good engines and then re-started those motors in both primary and secondary mode to prove the reliability of the General Electric GE-129 motors. We had no problems with the re-starts.”

“When that was done — not surprisingly — we had extra gas because that's another big advantage of this platform, the fuel capacity with the CFTs. With that extra gas, Mike Quintini and I decided we deserved a little high alpha maneuvering for our efforts.” Giese says they demonstrated “tailslides and other advanced control and handling maneuvers just to show that this thing is a really good slow-speed fighter in addition to a high-speed fighter.” Giese said he also checked the test instrumentation was “ready to go” so that when the jet is delivered to the customer at Eglin Air Force Base it is immediately available to enter the USAF flight-test program.

“I believe this is the most lethal and survivable jet that's on the market today and I say that because the battlespace effects that this airplane can provide are on par or exceed what you can do with an LO [low observable] platform that has restrictions. This jet has 30,000 lb of things we can put on the wings and the fuselage,” adds Giese. “No one’s going to match that. Then if you marry that up with the radar and the EW system, I would argue — even as a guy that flew the F-22 for 12 years — that this platform produces battlespace effects — which is what the commanders care about — that are equal or better than what an LO platform can do, that’s based on power, size, payload, and capacity.”

Source: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3 ... den-flight

First flight...15 minutes into it, and the jet reaches Mach 2.0 with CFTs! It still had gas to fly around and do control checks...shut down engines, restart them, pull off high alpha maneuvers, before finally landing.

Its already 20 F-15EX budgeted (8 FY 20, 12 FY 21). Won't be long before the FY22 budget is out. normally Feb release but I suspect by April/May at the latest (1st year new prez). The key person now imho could be John Roth. If the USAF doesn't put it into the budget, then it makes it harder for congress to reinstate (even though they have done so in other programs e.g A10).

If I'm not wrong, John Roth used to head the USAF finance during Trump's time so I doubt if he would change the current template that radically without pressure from the new SecDef. If it goes into the budget, congress will fund it. Boeing's presence in blue states makes it a given.

The decision to replace F-15Cs with F-15EX is not so simple. It would taken quite a long time to come up with the right plan. There will be some risks to change that to the F-35A. The F-15EX annual bugdet isn't that big. Savings will not be material, if any, by switching to the F-35A and if cut fully, doesn't really save that much but leaves a fighter gap (not going to happen). Somehow I don't see the new admin as hasty in their decision making. I can also see USAF prioritizing fighter capitalization above other forms of capitalization. Given a choice, losing A-10s would be preferred to losing F-15EXs. Bottom line, I think a F-15EX buy for FY22 will still happen.

First flight...15 minutes into it, and the jet reaches Mach 2.0 with CFTs! It still had gas to fly around and do control checks...shut down engines, restart them, pull off high alpha maneuvers, before finally landing.

Well with CFTs it's got over 25,000lbs of fuel, so that gives it a pretty good endurance.

First flight...15 minutes into it, and the jet reaches Mach 2.0 with CFTs! It still had gas to fly around and do control checks...shut down engines, restart them, pull off high alpha maneuvers, before finally landing.

Well with CFTs it's got over 25,000lbs of fuel, so that gives it a pretty good endurance.

BULL


QUOTE: If it was a clean jet we’d go out to Mach 2.5.

First flight...15 minutes into it, and the jet reaches Mach 2.0 with CFTs! It still had gas to fly around and do control checks...shut down engines, restart them, pull off high alpha maneuvers, before finally landing.

Who says a tanker wasn't around to top off the tanks???

First flight...15 minutes into it, and the jet reaches Mach 2.0 with CFTs! It still had gas to fly around and do control checks...shut down engines, restart them, pull off high alpha maneuvers, before finally landing.

Well with CFTs it's got over 25,000lbs of fuel, so that gives it a pretty good endurance.

BULL


QUOTE: If it was a clean jet we’d go out to Mach 2.5.

What's bull? The amount of fuel? >13,000lbs internal plus ~12,000lbs in the CFTs.

What's bull? The amount of fuel? >13,000lbs internal plus ~12,000lbs in the CFTs.

Bull is they would have taken the F-15EX out to Mach 2.5 If, the aircraft had been clean!

So, I question much of what was said........

What's bull? The amount of fuel? >13,000lbs internal plus ~12,000lbs in the CFTs.

Bull is they would have taken the F-15EX out to Mach 2.5 If, the aircraft had been clean!

So, I question much of what was said........

Well they do take clean jets up to M2.5 on check flights, so it's not an entirely implausible statement.