F-15X: USAF Seems Interested

New Pentagon chief under scrutiny over perceived Boeing bias

Concerns about Patrick Shanahan’s Boeing ties have re-emerged since President Donald Trump said he may be running the Pentagon ‘for a long time.’

Shanahan's ties to Boeing came under renewed scrutiny in December, when Bloomberg reported that Shanahan had urged the Air Force to add $1.2 billion to its fiscal 2020 budget to purchase 12 Boeing F-15X fighters.

Military experts seemed baffled by the F-15X decision, arguing that the jet, because it lacks the F-35’s stealth capability, is ineffective against enemies like Russia and China, which have sophisticated air defense technologies.

“They simply lack the survivability to fly into harm’s way and make it home against the military equipment that’s built by China and Russia — identified as the two pre-eminent threats in our national security strategy,” retired Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, the dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told POLITICO.

Air Force leaders have said publicly they are not interested in purchasing more F-15s, raising questions about the Pentagon's request to purchase the planes now.

In September, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told Defense News that the service needs to spend its money on stealthy, fifth-generation F-35s — and that buying even an advanced fourth-generation fighter such as the F-15X, which isn’t as stealthy, was not in the cards.

“This is a real head-scratcher for me,” retired Air Force Col. J.V. Venable, a senior research fellow with The Heritage Foundation, told POLITICO.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/ ... on-1064203

Honestly, Boeing doesn't even need F-15 production anymore. After winning the contract for the USAF T-X and the USN MQ-25A. So, this story that the US Government is ordering more Eagles to keep the line going is also "BS".

The primary driver in any business is to maximize profits. There can never be enough profit.

What they really need though is to invest in another product, I'd be having a close look at in-house VLO tactical probe tanker design, as that one's a no-brainier force-multiplier, if you can make it work, and it will sell like hot cakes.

And if it came to a need for extra missiles loitering in the area, even the LO MQ-25 has a weapon bay, and the pod can be removed, plus it has the wings for high-altitude loiter.

Edited.

What they really need though is to invest in another product, I'd be having a close look at in-house VLO tactical probe tanker design, as that one's a no-brainier force-multiplier, if you can make it work, and it will sell like hot cakes.

And if it came to a need for extra missiles loitering in the area, even the LO MQ-25 has a weapon bay, and the pod can be removed, plus it has the wings for high-altitude loiter.

I would agree. Boeing building new F-15's is like Mig building new Mig-29's.

Which, is the whole point really! That the F-15X would be more expensive to own and operate than the existing F-35A. While, being vastly less capable....

In that case then, the F-15X would be ideal for Canada...

LOL

+1

Interesting factoid that Korean Airlines has been maintaining the F-15s based out of Kadena for the past decade (see below). Understand a contract award in 2018 to continue that maintenance for another 9 years but haven't seen a press release on this...would be useful to know the details.

https://www.robins.af.mil/News/Article- ... -ceremony/

Any fantasy that the USAF would be ordering new F-15X airframes is just that - a fantasy. The latest leaked Luke 2019 demo clip should put an end to that, assuming the results of Red Flag already hadn't.

The aircraft's performance truly is "eye watering": A tight as hell power loop, followed by a pedal turn WHILE MAINTAINING ALTITUDE was quite frankly, jaw dropping. And this is the least impressive of its attributes. I was once a big time F-35 doubter, but have to admit - LM has accomplished something extraordinary.

When an F-16 pilot told me, "You can't see it" I asked for an example. He said during a recent exercise he had no idea where the F-35 was, until it hit him. At one point, ground control told him you have 2 F-35's at you 1 o'clock, 12 miles. He said he pointed the radar in that direction and.... whole lotta' nothin'. At 12 miles!

Seeing these Raptor like maneuvers is just the icing on the cake, and no F-15 can even come close. So I say retire the F-15C's and let their 104-0 air to air combat record rest. It can go down undefeated, and properly enjoy a wonderful retirement. The F-35 is the future, and no F-15 derivative can come close (either in capability or price). And I am a HUGE F-15 fan...

The aircraft's performance truly is "eye watering": A tight as hell power loop, followed by a pedal turn WHILE MAINTAINING ALTITUDE was quite frankly, jaw dropping.

It was losing altitude the entire maneuver. It temporarily seems to hang in place for a period when the velocity vector was pointed at the camera. Only a Mode 4 F-35B or a Harrier could do a "helicopter turn" while maintaining altitude, only one of which can do a power loop, neither of which can do both back to back.

The latest leaked Luke 2019 demo clip should put an end to that

The problem is that this has never been about performance but has been a mixture of bean-counting and Corporate Welfare.

On the bean-counting side, that argument failed as soon as the F-35A dropped under $90 mil and it's CPFH dropped below the F-15E's.

The only thing left is Corporate Welfare.

When enough F-35 are on the order books and the spare parts bins filled, and the maintenance costs starts to come down?
It will outclass all other competition.

When enough F-35 are on the order books and the spare parts bins filled, and the maintenance costs starts to come down?
It will outclass all other competition.

That's right now.

When enough F-35 are on the order books and the spare parts bins filled, and the maintenance costs starts to come down?
It will outclass all other competition.

That's right now.

Not yet, servicability is still on the low side.

Actually that is at its peak. Serviceability is normally an inverse relationship to time.

This quote was mentioned here:
viewtopic.php?f=55&t=21808&start=2910

But I think it fits more appropriately here.

With all of this combined with all that was mentioned before, I fail to realize in how or in where the F-15C can be any better than the F-15E against enemy aircraft, apart from having a potentially slightly better agility (if any that is).

So we can agree that the E model has superior avionics and EMC to the C variant.

But what if we can get the best of both worlds? The C variant's kinematics with the E's electronics. That could very well put the Eagle back on the top of the 4th gen food chain. Cause lets face it the Eagle as it is, is at the bottom, among high end air superiority 4th gens (i.e. Typhoon, Rafale, Su-35). Remember Col. Fornlof said that the Su-30 is a bit better than the Eagle (using his hands to illustrate the capability gap).

Will the F-15X be an air superiority focused Eagle or a multi role Strike Eagle? I think its the former because once the C retires in the 2040 timeline, the US will be left with just the F-22 as its sole air dominance focused platform. (we don't know if PCA will be ready in relevant numbers by then)

Yes I know the F-35 and F-16 can do it too but hear me out.
Theres a difference between a squadron that trains almost exclusively for air-air and a squadron that simply includes air to air in their training syllabus.

The F-35 is too good of a strike platform to assign it to a squadron that will simply train and perform air to air missions like the F-15C does now. It's literally using just 40% of the F-35's intended capabilities.

So if the F-15X turns out to be an F-15C with F-15QA avionics and sensors and engines but has the weight of an F-15C, then you got urself a plane that will give even the Typhoon and Su-35 (what I consider the 2 best 4th gen air superiority platforms) a run for their money both BVR and WVR