USAF buying new F-15s

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Vonz90
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USAF buying new F-15s

Post by Vonz90 »

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g-man
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by g-man »

Ayup. Because the internal bays on the F-35 don't fill the bill for current 'bomb truck' missions the Eagles are flying.
Lockheed’s December “fact sheet” said the F-15X would cost $90 million each and have less range, acceleration and time to remain over a target than the F-35.
They of course fail to mention that while in 'stealth configuration', the internal bays hold 5,700lbs of munitions, only 24,800 LESS than the F-15. Granted, the bomb-truck configured Eagles are not stealthy, but that's not the mission they need to fill. Loiter time for the 'burn holes in the sky waiting on someone to call for fast movers' mission is irrelevant, because refuelers. And is also moot if you ain't got no bombs left. But nobody's paying attention to the question asked, only the answer given, to a question that wasn't even asked. Yay acquisitions!
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blackeagle603
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by blackeagle603 »

New neighbor is retired Zoomie pilot. Subject of Marines holding out for F-35 and riding out the timed out SLEP'd out legacy Hornets came up. Says I, something favorable about the Super Hornet and the years of burden that's put on Marine maintainers and risks to Pilots. Yeah but, says he, when you have to go deep he's a big fan of that low radar signature a lot.

Was in first wave of F-117 pilots. Went downtown Baghdad apparently. Flew a variety of airframes before that. Looking forward to more conversation with him. We're overdue to host a neighborhood BYOB BBQ and get re-acquainted with people. There's been some turnover since the last time. Some interesting conversations and characters -- quite a few prior service.
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g-man
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by g-man »

The major problem I have with the F-35 is the perpetual highlighting of stealth at the cost of everything else, especially in roles that don’t require it. CAS? I wants me a damn A-10 and the boatload of Brrrrt it brings along. Bomb truck? 15E-model. SEAD? That’s where the 35 would really shine. But the ‘stealth CAS’ isn’t a thing, and to carry anything approaching 15E levels of whoopass the 35 has to rely on exterior hard-mounts, so she ain’t so stealthy nomore.
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Termite
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by Termite »

IMHO, as a former grunt and later helo pilot, nothing does CAS better than the A-10 and the AC-130. But, you need complete air superiority.
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Langenator
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by Langenator »

The A-10 doesn't need complete air superiority - it can work with local and temporary. Loiter in friendly airspace, fly into the target area, hit targets, RTB for more ordnance or go back to loiter until new targets are found or a new window can be opened for existing targets.

Opening that window can mean both offensive counter-air and SEAD, as needed.

The other thing the AF probably will need in the not to distant future is a replacement for the F-16. I hear the Israelis have done some interesting upgrades to theirs. I'm sure other users have as well. Upgrades the USAF wasn't interested in at the time, because the F-35 was going to solve all their problems.

Instead, the F-35 ate their budget and is too expensive to fly against anyone except near-peer adversaries. (And it's OR rate sucks.)

When they decided to squish all of the services fighter plane wish lists into the JSF, I wonder if anyone sat down a realized that all of the planes that ended up being good multi-service combat aircraft - i'm looking primarily at the A-4, A-7, and F-4 - all started off as Navy aircraft that turned out to be so good the AF bought them too. Attempts to design a plane for both services from the start (F-111) didn't fare so well.
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Vonz90
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by Vonz90 »

I am not an F-35 hater at all, but I think this makes sense apart from the F-35 pro/con. If you are worried about having a major balloon go up (say with China) then having multiple fighter production lines makes a lot of sense. So I am taking it as a hedge in that direction
Greg
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by Greg »

They need numbers. This makes sense to pad out the numbers, as the low end of the usual high/low mix.

And I believe this will keep at least a third line open as I think the F16 line is still filling foreign orders. (It was foreign orders keeping the F15 line open too, but those have about dried up.)
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HTRN
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by HTRN »

Bomb truck? A F-111 repowered with F135 engines and an updated avionics package would haul more boom than anything short of an actual heavy bomber(30k lbs+ for a f variant), and would cost less than any other option. The problem is one of airframes -ithink all the ones we have left are now basically scrap, although the Aussies were flying them till 2010..
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Greg
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Re: USAF buying new F-15s

Post by Greg »

HTRN wrote: Fri Apr 26, 2019 7:19 pm Bomb truck? A F-111 repowered with F135 engines and an updated avionics package would haul more boom than anything short of an actual heavy bomber(30k lbs+ for a f variant), and would cost less than any other option. The problem is one of airframes -ithink all the ones we have left are now basically scrap, although the Aussies were flying them till 2010..
Numbers. Scraping a few piles of spare parts out of a boneyard isn't the way to add long term workhorse numbers to your fleet.

And the F15E already replaced the F111 for reasons.
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If you know what you're doing, you're not learning anything. -Unknown
Sanity is the process by which you continually adjust your beliefs so they are predictively sound. -esr
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