Nice discussion of the EX. I like Pako’s description of the audio test and stealth.
I can imagine the war planners are coming up with some insane A2A strategies.
You guys have no idea how utterly massively OP sensor fusion1, datalinks2 and passive sensors3 are when it comes to air combat. Even shitty sensor fusion will make a mediocre machine shine, and datalinks are so powerful, they were invented in the 60s for air combat.
1: Sensor Fusion is the trick where you display to the pilot a compounded track that is made by putting the output of all your sensors together. So own radar, IR sensors, Radar Warning Receiver and datalink all get merged into one single display, letting the pilot make decisions without having to work out from blips on a screen what is out there.
2: A data link is pretty much an (airborne) battlefield internet. The computers in the planes talk to one another, sharing information on what’s out there and where they themselves are. This allows for some amazing tricks and mostly takes away the danger of friendly fire.
3: Passive sensors are things that do not send out a signal in order to find out what’s out there and where exactly it is. These are mostly IR sensors (cameras) and very sensitive antennae that listen for enemy radar signals and are built in such a way to allow for very precise pinpointing of the source.
These technologies, when combined, can make air combat from a dangerous game of chicken into what almost amounts to trained adults beating up kids with blindfolds and earmuffs in a nerf fight.
Really interesting to hear how there’s been a lot of F-15 development and improvements thanks to foreign countries buying them, and that we’re able to leverage all the continued work. Good stuff.
All of this points perhaps to the critical importance of communication security for all those links.
The “Thanks a lot Pal” Commendation Medal.
Who cares what platform you’re launching your long-range guided missiles from if you’re targeting an enemy that doesn’t see you.
exactly, and if they don’t know you’re there because you’re not radiating, he never even gets a chance to shoot back. So unfair!
You want the definition of a badass fighter pilot? I give you Royce Williams. Though his actions are the exact opposite of beyond visual range…
Yeah, that’s how its done! Sweet story man, thanks for posting :D
Amazing. Navy finally awarded him the Navy Cross
That was interesting. I was wondering why they were buying such an old airplane. But when it’s recast as “F-35 came out later then expected, even with the F-35 assembly line maxed out we can’t build them fast enough to replace our failing current aircraft” it makes a lot of sense. Particularly when they talk about how this was all planned before the “Global War on Terror” and so the last generation aircraft are putting in a lot more flight hours then expected and are starting to fall apart earlier then the originally planned retirement date.
The F-15EX has a lot going for it.
-
You don’t need stealth for the vast majority of missions, such as intercepting potentially hijacked airliners or loitering at 30,000 feet all day over a third-world battlefield waiting for CAS requests.
-
The F-35s only have about 8,000 lifetime flight hours. The F-15EX has 20,000(!!!) lifetime flight hours. Coupled with #1 and you can save a lot of wear and tear on your F-35s and other stealth aircraft, so they have longer lifespans.
-
The existing F-15 fleets were built in the 70s and 80s, and they were running into serious structural fatigue problems over a decade ago. They need to be retired.
Then there are all the points mentioned in the video. The Air Force doesn’t have to spend billions and years developing the platform. It’s like going down to the dealership and just ordering cars.
The thing that doesn’t make sense about the F-15EX is that its build cost per unit ($87.7 million) is actually higher than the current cost for building a new F-35 ($78 million). Although if the cost per flight hour is low enough for the F-15EX, maybe that will make up for it.
It does seem like this is the same strategy the Navy tried with the Littoral Combat Ship — we can get a lower-capability craft and get a lot more ships. That doesn’t seem to have gone well for them, and AFAICT the LCS is on the way out, and acknowledged as a misstep.
Engines are expensive. F-15 has two of them. F-35 has one.
The big difference between this and the LCS is that the LCS sucked. The F-15 is very good.
Indeed, and the navy just keeps on falling back to more Arleigh Burkes for the surface fleet. But both the Arleigh Burke flight III and F-15EX’s are ridiculously more capable than the original versions of the platform.
It seems the basics of jets and ships are solved to the point that reusing a tried and true design and upgrading the guts often beats out a whole new design.
The improvements in systems now are more likely to be in electronics, software, and ordnance, rather than in platforms and propulsion. At least, the gaps between big leaps in the latter are a lot wider than the gaps between significant jumps in capability of the former.
Amazing story, out numbered 7-2, with an inferior jet and still managed to shoot down four.
It demonstrate a point, I made early in the Ukraine war, despite the occasional provocative rhetoric, the cold war has turned hot numerous times in the last 75 years, but both side desire to avoid a nuclear war means provocative action generally don’t result in an escalation.
Quite true. Then again, even the USSR of Stalin’s time in the early 1950s was arguably far more rational an actor than Putin’s Russia of 2023. I mean, rational in the sense of operating according to principles and logic that other countries could rely on and understand at least. Additionally, the USSR for much of the post-war period could justifiably see itself as a superpower, and hence had less need to posture and publicly appear to never back down. It could even, at times, turn compromise into political gain, showing the non-aligned countries how reasonable the Communists were compared to the running dog imperialists, etc.
Today though Russia is far weaker than it was, it has pissed away whatever political and strategic capital it had other than its nukes, and its leadership, really just its leader, seems obsessed with image and appearance. The lack of confidence and fragile ego of Putin make today’s Russia a much more volatile actor unfortunately.