The World's Greatest Fighter Jet: The F-15 Eagle

[Trango Towers]

lol define a "weak air force"

America has never fought anyone who can actually fight back.

But the f15 is a beast even today

 

[VCheng]

16 is above 15. hamara aif sola sab se mahaan hai

And 17 is above 16. Right?

Train hard. Win easy. The End.

But that is so "unfair". Or not!

Put your f15 against strong airforces Sir like Russian airforce and PLAAF than we talk F-15 is a greatest fighter or not Sir

It is not. Clearly. It is an old platform now. USA has even better ones and several in the pipeline after those. That is the whole point. Always be better than everyone else. Let them keep trying to catch up.

 

[Trailer23]

That statement alone marked you as an amateur when it comes to aviation knowledge.

No d-uh... Incase you may not have noticed, but 99.9% of the Members on this Forum are 'amateurs', with no Military background.

By the way, I am former USAF, F-111 (Cold War), then F-16 (Desert Storm).

Congratulations. I've operated flights for the US Army/USAF & US Contractors like KBR & FLUOR to Iraq & Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.

Cry yourself a river.

I'll see if I can find the track by Justin Timberlake on YouTube.

Note: Personally, i'm a Viper Fanboy a.k.a Amateur. No shame in that.

 

[gambit]

...in the Vietnam War,...up against more agile Soviet-built MiGs, the F-4s were at a disadvantage. They were less agile than the MiGs, lacked a gun for close-range combat, and their pilots weren’t properly trained.

In the air war over Viet Nam, Operation Bolo proved...

To get ability you need good training.​

Colonel Erich "Bubi" Hartmann, GAP​

​

Fly with the head and not with the muscles. That is the way to long life for a fighter pilot. The fighter pilot who is all muscle and no head will never live long enough for a pension.​

Colonel Willie Batz, GAP​

237 Victories, WW-II​

Operation Bolo proved that the VPAF was not what popular perceptions made them out to be.

Operation Bolo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Basically, in Operation Bolo, the F-4s killed enough MIG-21s that the VPAF grounded its MIG-21 fleet for months.

Typically, the MiG-21 was used in hit-and-run tactics; being vectored by Ground Control Intercept (GCI) to an intercept position to the vulnerable rear of an American strike formation, then executing a missile attack and diving away before fighter cover could intervene. Scoring its first kill on October 5, 1966,[4] in December intercepting MiG-21s shot down two F-105s and forced 20% of all strike sorties to jettison their bombloads.​

The VPAF did not employed the more agile MIG-21 in the best manner. It was a combination of limited availability and training. In other words, the MIG-21, no matter how technically superior it was over the F-4 in many aspects, the VPAF had to preserve the fleet as long as possible, so their training regime was limited to essentially harassment tactics. Make one attack pass, maybe two passes, against much slower and heavier opponents, then run.

Then when the F-4 pilots forced the MIG-21 pilots into what each pilot were (supposedly) trained to do, which was to actually fight using the maximum features and capabilities their platforms has to offer, the VPAF pilots failed. Their training failed them.

The most important rule of any form of combat...

In a fight, you win not by fighting under your opponent's rules, but by forcing him to fight under yours. And cheating is allowed.​

Inferior training as revealed by your opponent is NOT your problem. It is his country's problem and one for you to exploit to the final end -- a kill. Rarely does any engagement result in a second chance for the pilot who lost a fight. Back in WW II, the US sent home any pilot after a certain number of combat missions regardless of how many kills he may have. The idea was to impart his experience to the next generation of combat pilots waiting in the wings. The results were that Luftwaffe and JPNese pilots were killed at a non-replaceable rate, contributing to them losing the war. Newer and less combat experience US pilots forced Luftwaffe and JPNese pilots to fight under US pilots' rules.

Criticizing US airpower because we fought opponents who could not 'fight back' is a stupid argument. Poor training limits your ability to fight with your head by limiting your intellectual options, especially when you need options the most, and if you cannot 'fight back' because you do not know what your airplane can do for you in A, B, or C situations -- you die. Simple as that.

 

[mulj]

Experts say it is still better then f35 asset for aquiring air supremacy.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Put your f15 against strong airforces Sir like Russian airforce and PLAAF than we talk F-15 is a greatest fighter or not Sir

March 25, 2023

US Deploys F-15 Fighters To Launch Retaliatory Strike In Syria After Iranian Drone Hits US Military Base

Hours after a military base housing US troops was struck allegedly by an Iranian drone, the US Central Military Command (CENTCOM) dispatched its most trusted and combat-hardened fighter, the F-15E, to launch retaliatory strikes. Tensions have significantly ratcheted between the two adversaries...

eurasiantimes.com

US Deploys F-15 Fighters To Launch Retaliatory Strike In Syria After Iranian Drone Hits US Military Base

Hours after a military base housing US troops was struck allegedly by an Iranian drone, the US Central Military Command (CENTCOM) dispatched its most trusted and combat-hardened fighter, the F-15E, to launch retaliatory strikes.

 

[That Guy]

Put your f15 against strong airforces Sir like Russian airforce and PLAAF than we talk F-15 is a greatest fighter or not Sir

I don't know about Chinese jets, but against Russian Sukhois the F-15s latest variants would come out on top with very little damage.

Russian jets have proven to be of questionable quality in the last 5ish years.

 

[PradoTLC]

I think what people are trying to say is F-15 v Su-27 would be perhaps a better match to really test whether it would have done so well in such a one sided manner.

Su27 was available to USSR I believe by the end of the 1970s

 

[gambit]

Enjoy...

The 'mighty' VKS...

 

[undercover JIX]

And 17 is above 16. Right?

17 is hybrid tech, not easy to compare and judge. but 22 is better than 35.

 

[gambit]

Basically, Cesar Rodriguez in his F-15 shot down an Iraqi MIG-29. US SpecOps troops found the MIG wreckage, recovered some avionics components, and sent those components for technical analysis. It turned out the MIG's HUD camera recorded the MIG's demise.

F-15 Eagle Pilot Explains Exactly How He Downed Three Migs During Two Wars

Cesar “Rico” Rodriguez gives a remarkable account of how he brought down three enemy fighters, two during Desert Storm and one during Allied Force.

www.thedrive.com

Here is the image of the Sparrow missile right before impact...

There are other interesting bits about combat aviation in general.

I could see his lock on my RWR. [I found out later that between the Rivet Joint and my electronic warfare that his radar was being jammed appropriately and as a result he couldn't employ any of his weapons against me].​

Rivet Joint and AWACS are not the same even though they have some overlapping technical capabilities. AWACS is more about management. Rivet Joint is about working the airspace INSIDE the EM spectrum. Rivet Joint was watching Rodriguez's six, so to speak.

...we had rules of engagement that required anything inside of 10 miles to be visually identified. The rules were written like this due to our ability with the radar in certain scenarios to “see” the F-117 Nighthawk. In hindsight, the way you write that is: when you are operating with an F-117, or at night in conjunction with an F-117, if you have a lock inside of 10 miles you have to identify it.​

The F-117 and later low radar observable platforms were never 'invisible'. We never claimed they are. Only hyperbolic media contents said so and always misled the public. But what happens is that within a certain distance, the F-117 WILL be a constant radar return. Back in Desert Storm, that distance is less than 10 miles. Back then, the F-15 carries among the largest airborne radars and still had to get within 'no escape' zone in order to 'see' the F-117. That 'no escape' zone works both ways. If you can 'see' the F-22 or F-35, they can also 'see' you, but they would 'see' you far sooner and farther away. You be dead. And maybe your HUD camera can record your last moments on Earth.

The AWACS was notoriously about three miles off in their range estimations. So it could have been 13 miles or seven miles.​

Perfectly understandable and every pilot knows it. The issue is physics and electronics, and not just US AWACS have this. You have the detector and target both moving in 3D space. Sometimes they are closing. Sometimes they moving apart. And the AWACS has to do this for just about all targets it acquired. There is only so much physical memory space in its avionics.

He was at about 400 feet and I was 600-700 feet above the desert...

I was still about 1,400 feet behind the MiG, but I wasn't thinking about using the gun. He suddenly rolled inverted from 300 feet and started a Split-S maneuver, and of course, that wasn't going to work for him. He hit the desert floor and ended up tumbling in a big fireball.​

The split-S is a DESCENDING maneuver. You roll inverted then stick back into a 1/2 loop. At the end, you would be heading in the opposite direction at a LOWER ALTITUDE. This is a perfect example of poor situational awareness (SA) on the Iraqi pilot. The minimum altitude required for a split-S depends on the airplane, its current load, and its airspeed. It means there is no fixed minimum altitude for the split-S. Not even a clean F-16 config-ed for an airshow would do a split-S at 300 ft altitude.

Here is how the Blue Angels perform the split-S...

From 200 ft altitude, the jets GAINED altitude before executing the split-S.

In this particular incident, the Iraqi pilot basically got scared. At 300 ft altitude, the MIG basically had only 2D space to maneuver. If he climb he will be completely vulnerable to Rodriguez's missile or gun because the F-15's radar will see a broadside -- the MIG's top surface. At 1400 ft separation between the combatants, even a gun would be near instantaneous.

...when my body reaches a level of adrenaline in a life and death situation I go into a severe series of tremors and shakes. So when we came out of this fight and got on the tanker to get some gas I thought it was time to start relaxing. I suddenly started to feel significant vibrations, and at first, I thought it was something wrong with the jet. I let go of the stick and grabbed the towel racks [hand grab rails on the canopy arch] and the jet leveled off and all was fine. It felt like forever, but was probably only a minute or so of serious convulsions going through my body. I didn’t think anything of it and certainly didn’t tell the flight doc!​

You do not have to go thru combat to experience what Rodriguez went thru. Top Gun, Red Flag, and Weapons School will give you the same shakes. You do not like anyone behind you even in an exercise and your opponent is a 'good guy'.

Rodriguez says that as the war progressed, the F-15C’s prowess led to more pilots becoming keen to put their training into practice and claim more aerial victories...With 32 overall “kills,” the F-15C had proved its ability to surgically target and eliminate the enemy fighters with impunity.​

This is psychologically important borderline critical. If a platform have never been in combat and even though the platform have been put thru different simulated/training scenarios, there will always be a certain amount of hesitation on whether the platform will perform as advertised. Desert Storm essentially lowered that hesitation to the minimum level across all US airpower assets. This is why debrief is critical. The information recorded will be analyzed and disseminate throughout the force. Every operator of every platform, airplane or ship or tank, will gain more confidence in using them. The operators will become more aggressive and proactive in every situation. Essentially, if he can do it, so can I.

The corollary is that as the platform gained successes in combat, the psychological reverse will occur. Our potential opponents will re-assess what they have and how have they been using them.

This rule is supreme...

In a fight, you win not by fighting under your opponent's rules, but by forcing him to fight under yours. And cheating is allowed.​

As more 'kills' are reported, potential adversary pilots will become hesitant in putting their jets to the fullest capabilities. They will wonder: Did the other guys who lost performed to their fullest?

Desert Storm is 30+ yrs old and people are starting to pooh-pooh it. I say go for it. Their countries' pilots will pay the price for that disdain.

 

[waz]

Lovely jet , just beautifully made. It's always a joy seeing them at airshows. Prefer them over the F-16. I feel for the Eagle as the F-16 got so much hot press, heck even films in its honour lol;

It's called Eagle but the Falcon took centre show.

 

[kingQamaR]

F15 the best modern day fighter ever built

 

[VCheng]

17 is hybrid tech, not easy to compare and judge. but 22 is better than 35.

So the numbers do not mean much, I take it? Obviously the Americans are too illogical to name their fighters sequentially.

 

[undercover JIX]

So the numbers do not mean much, I take it? Obviously the Americans are too illogical to name their fighters sequentially.

right, Americans need to outsource this to Jero Inventors.