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F15X

YZT580 said:
3 to 1.  That is 3 F15X led by one F35 with the F35 never firing a shot. That would give 66 war shots controlled from a position completely removed from the source of the shots. Has there ever been a squadron composed of different aircraft trained to work together?  Disadvantages: two training streams, parts requirements and maintenance training so there would be no savings and deployment logistics would be far more complicated.  Advantages: wouldn't need to launch the F35 for many intercepts or routine patrols and they have a higher per hour cost, more flexible fleet, longer duration on station, higher attack speeds mach 2 vs. 1.6.

Similar to, but not the same as, AWACs vectoring Gen 3/4 fighters, or Ground Radar vectoring WW2 fighters?

Thinking that one through a bit more - the big difference is that the "spotter", much like a "sniper", can't be seen and doesn't need its own defence force.
 
Chris Pook said:
Similar to, but not the same as, AWACs vectoring Gen 3/4 fighters, or Ground Radar vectoring WW2 fighters?

Thinking that one through a bit more - the big difference is that the "spotter", much like a "sniper", can't be seen and doesn't need its own defence force.

The issue for us is a purchase like that is either/or rather than building a tag team like that. Overall, based on issues like range and our historical preference for expeditionary forces the F-15X does actually seem to be the superior choice, and the "F-21" demonstrates that some of the sensor and data advantages of the F-35 can be adapted to other airframes. Given the USAF is looking at this option (and who knows how many other air forces using Eagles may be considering this as well), there does seem to be a window to get a large number of airframes built and share economies of scale with some sort of consortium arrangment.
 
By former head USAF Air Combat Command:

F-15EX Needed to Compete With Russia and China

To compete and win against near-peer competitors such as Russia and China, the United States Air Force needs both fourth- and fifth-generation fighters. That simple reality has generated a contentious debate this year, with Air Force leaders defending the need to buy new F-15EX aircraft to maintain a diverse mix of capabilities across the fighter fleet.

As the former commander of Air Combat Command, I dealt every day with another simple reality:  Today’s Air Force is smaller than it has been at any time in our history. I witnessed the shrinking of our fighter force, the aging of our aircraft and the poor decisions and troubled programs that exacerbated those challenges.

The result is that today, the Air Force is fighting to simultaneously maintain fighter capacity while modernizing fighter capabilities. That fight is manifesting this year in the decision to buy the new advanced F-15EX for two simple reasons.

First, due to its age and heavy use, the F-15C fleet has to retire sooner than any of our other fourth-generation aircraft. The Air Force is facing the loss of more than 230 F-15Cs in a matter of years.
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Second, the F-15 is unique in that it flies farther, loiters longer and carries more weapons than any other fighter in the Air Force. In other words, the F-15 is critical to Air Force capacity not just in terms of the number of aircraft available but also in the number of missions and individual strikes it can carry out relative to other platforms. As a result, if the Air Force wanted to replace F-15s with another aircraft without losing capacity, it would have to buy many more individual airplanes at a much higher cost.

That is the simple math that drove the decision of our military leaders to provide the Air Force with added funding this year to purchase new advanced F-15s. That additional funding enabled the Air Force to solve its F-15C problem while simultaneously adding more than a billion dollars this year to the fifth generation F-35.

These two aircraft, the F-15EX and the F-35A, are a formidable team against a near-peer competitor. The F-35A brings penetrating stealth and data fusion to quarterback the fight. The F-15EX brings the Air Force fighter fleet’s most advanced electronic warfare system, standoff capabilities including hypersonic weapons and a massive weapons carriage.

Allowing the Air Force to acquire the F-15EX without slowing or curtailing F-35 procurement will yield a larger, more potent fleet and can do so in the near term.

At a time when funding for pilot training and military construction is continually making headlines, advanced F-15s can enter service within two years and do so with no infrastructure costs, minimal retraining, and using equipment and spare parts already on the shelves.

Protecting our national security requires a robust, complementary fighter fleet with the capabilities and capacity to dominate our adversaries. Our Air Force leaders have the right plan with the F-15EX to maintain our dominance in global air superiority.

Mike Hostage is a retired United States Air Force four-star general who served as the commander of the Air Combat Command.
https://morningconsult.com/opinions/f-15ex-needed-to-compete-with-russia-and-china/

Mark
Ottawa
 
Tale of two fighters:

F-15EX vs. F-35A

Two jets from different eras, with different missions, strengths, and weaknesses, face off in a battle for today’s funds.

The F-35 Lightning has been the Air Force’s sole new fighter program since 2009, when the F-22 Raptor program was prematurely terminated. While behind schedule, the program has been a top Air Force priority for more than a decade and until recently, was expected to remain USAF’s  only fighter program until a future capability, still undefined, comes online.

Now the F-35 faces a new challenge from an old jet design, a variant of the F-15 Strike Eagle; an airplane from an earlier era, built for a different mission. Though the Air Force denies it, the two jets are competing for inevitably limited dollars within the service’s fighter portfolio [emphasis added].

The Air Force’s fiscal 2020 budget request includes $1.1 billion to buy the first eight of a planned 144 F-15EX aircraft. The new airplanes are very similar to the export versions now being built for Qatar. The F-15EX is a two-seat fighter that can be flown by one or two aviators and is meant to replace F-15Cs and Ds that are reaching the end of their service lives.

Under the plan, the Air Force would receive two F-15EX airplanes in 2022, six more in 2023, and a total of 80 airplanes in the next five years [emphasis added]. Separately, the 2020 budget request also includes $949 million to upgrade existing F-15s.

Adding new F-15s was not an Air Force idea, but instead came out of the Pentagon’s Cost and Program Evaluation office, or CAPE, and was endorsed by former Defense Secretary James Mattis [emphasis added]. While the Air Force’s long-held position has been to invest only in fifth generation fighter technology, it has defended the plan to buy new F-15s as a way to maintain fighter capacity, given the aging of the F-15C fleet and the slow pace of F-35 acquisitions.

While the Air Force is adamant that buying F-15EXs will not reduce the requirement to build 1,763 F-35s, history and the Air Force’s own budget request suggests otherwise. The 2020 budget submission shows the Air Force buying 24 fewer F-35s over the next five years compared to last year’s plan [emphasis added--no doubt USAF hopes Congress will provide the funding themselves, as they did a while ago for USN Super Hornets that Pentagon wouldn't put in official budget request].

The opening for the F-15EX results from the age and condition of today’s F-15Cs. Designed as air superiority fighters and first fielded in the 1970s, the F-15Cs were planned to have retired by now. But the premature termination of the F-22 after acquiring 186 aircraft—less than half the planned production—compelled the Air Force to extend their service. Now, key structural components are reaching the end of their engineered service life—so much so that many F-15Cs must operate today under significant speed and G-loading restrictions.

The Air Force’s arguments for the F-15EX turn on preserving capacity. The F-15Cs will age out of the inventory faster than new F-35s can come on line, reducing the available fighter fleet [emphasis added] at a time when the Air Force argues it’s already seven squadrons short of the 62 officials say they need to meet the National Defense Strategy.

The F-15EX, USAF argues, is essentially an in-production aircraft. It has upward of 70 percent parts commonality with the F-15C and E already in USAF service and can use almost all the same ground equipment, hangars, simulators and other support gear as the Eagles now in service. At a unit price roughly comparable to that of the F-35, F-15 squadrons could transition to the F-15EX in a matter of weeks, whereas converting pilots, maintainers, facilities and equipment to the F-35 takes many months, the Air Force says [emphasis added].

The F-15EX, though, is a fourth generation aircraft which lacks the stealth characteristics and sensor fusion of the F-35 and F-22 and therefore won’t be able to survive against modern air defenses for very much longer. USAF has said that 2028 is probably the latest the jet could conceivably operate close to contested enemy airspace. However, CAPE and Air Force officials see viable continuing missions for the F-15EX in homeland [i.e. NORAD] and airbase defense [emphasis added], in maintaining no-fly zones where air defenses are limited or nonexistent, and in delivering standoff munitions.

While the Air Force has maintained since 2001 that it will not buy any “new old” fighters, and that it needs to transition as quickly as possible to an all-5th-gen force, proponents argue that buying F-15s and F-35s concurrently would fill gaps in the fighter fleet more rapidly. Moreover, USAF leaders, defending the new F-15 buy, have said that the F-35 still hasn’t proven it can be maintained at the advertised cost (comparable to the F-16, at about $20,000 per hour) and the service prefers to wait to make large bulk buys of the airplane after the Block 4 version starts rolling off the assembly line in the mid-2020s. This approach, they say, will also avoid spending large amounts of money to update earlier versions of the F-35 to the Block 4 configuration.

This isn’t the first time the Air Force has considered buying new F-15s, but the F-15EX isn’t the same as upgraded models previously offered by the jets’ maker, Boeing. The most recent offerings would have required extensive development work. In 2009, Boeing proposed the F-15 “Silent Eagle,” which would have added stealth characteristics. That jet would have carried weapons internally in conformal stations and featured canted vertical fins and surface treatments to reduce its radar signature. Boeing offered another concept, the “Advanced” F-15, or F-15 2040C, last year. That jet would have had a substantially increased payload and advanced avionics.

Instead, the F-15EX requires almost no new development, would be able to execute a test program very quickly, and requires minimal additional development.     

Air Force officials say one potential mission for the F-15EX would be carrying “outsize” munitions, such as hypersonic missiles, and as a possible standoff weapons magazine working in conjunction with the F-22.

The F-35 and F-15EX were designed in different eras for different missions.

The F-15C was designed for air superiority in the pre-stealth era; the F-35 to be the battlefield “quarterback,” gathering vast amounts of information from behind enemy lines while executing stealthy strikes and picking off enemy fighters. Yet, as Congress decides how to invest in future aircraft, comparisons are necessary as the two planes compete for resources. Click here for a side-by-side comparison.                 
http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2019/May%202019/F-15EX-vs-F-35A-.aspx

Mark
Ottawa
 
Why was the F22 cut prematurely?


And instead of concentrating on stealth why not jam pack a plane with weapons and sensors and counter measures. It can't sneak around but it can see stuff, shoot at stuff and take a beating. Like an A10 flying around with one engine and half a wing missing.

Make flying tanks instead of something super fragile.
 
F-22 cut, by DefSec Gates, holdover from Bush admin, because of high cost and little perceived threat from Russia/China at the time; plus F-35 expected actually to be in service in a few years (hah!):
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-jul-22-na-f-22-plane22-story.html

Mark
Ottawa
 
It was labelled a "cold war relic" by Gates and used as an example of a defence industry gone astray in terms of spiralling costs. Even John McCain voted against funding it further.
 
Quoting from the article above, but not knowing how to only quote one line without quoting the whole thing...it was stated that 2028 is the latest they believe an aircraft could operate in contested airspace, without 5th generation aircraft being required.

We need to remember though that contested airspace isn't always contested for very long.  Just because it's contested at the beginning of a conflict doesn't mean it isn't utterly owned within a few days or a few weeks.


Substantial AD threats such as the S-400 aren't going to be replaced as quickly as they are destroyed in an all out conflict.  Between sea launched cruise missiles, air strikes, etc - I imagine most substantial air defense threats will be taken out of service fairly quickly.  MANPADS is another issue altogether.


The USAF needs a solid air superiority fighter with good range & a solid weapons carriage capability.  With state of the art radar and EW systems, and an airframe designed for 20,000hrs - the F-15X seems like a great compliment to the F35, and allows the F-15C to finally be taken out of service. 
 
Mind you for how long can we sustain air to air missile expenditure in any peer to peer conflict?
 
Jarnhamar said:
Why was the F22 cut prematurely?


And instead of concentrating on stealth why not jam pack a plane with weapons and sensors and counter measures. It can't sneak around but it can see stuff, shoot at stuff and take a beating. Like an A10 flying around with one engine and half a wing missing.

Make flying tanks instead of something super fragile.

By that line of reasoning, the B-1R is the way to go. It would have an even greater range than any conceivable fighter, carry a boatload of munitions n internal and external racks and even have a dash speed of Mach 2.2. Given emerging technologies the internal volume can also be used in the future to carry a laser weapon, hypersonic missiles or even a scaled down railgun, allowing the attack of targets on the surface all the way to Low Earth Orbit,
 

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