F-15EX instead of F-35 like Su-35S instead of Su-57?
Now if many people decide that the author decided to mix some crazy cocktail, then they will be wrong. Everything is still crazier and more complicated than it seems at first glance, and what is happening will not have to be tried to be embraced at once in one fell swoop, but to master quietly, as you know what is poured over ice crowbar. Although at one time we preferred a steel corner from the KUNG sheathing.
The answer to the question “Why the F-15 again” lies far back in the early 90s of the last century. So let's go to history... Normally.
So, the nineties, USA. Generals from aviation they really want new planes, because chic, brilliance and beauty and cut. And do not forget about fighting, because Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, Libya and the list goes on. Therefore, already at the end of the 20th century, the generals were brainstorming over what they would fly into the 21st century with. That is, new aircraft were needed. Lots of new and cool planes to keep everyone in awe and fear.
Of course, the planes had to be of the fifth generation and nothing else.
Of course, they flew into the 21st century on planes of this very fifth generation, but the trouble is that it turned out a little expensive.
The fact that the F-22 has become a “black hole” that absorbs money faster than the machine prints it was understood by everyone in the last century, because the Raptor began to be pushed away from flights, where it began to eat dollars like crazy, to cut funding and in general to prepare for not honorable, but resignation.
The F-35 was darling: it didn’t crack money in such wild quantities, in comparison with the F-22 it turned out to be generally cheap and simple. But the trouble is - although the plane did not burn bags of dollars in the afterburner, it had other shortcomings. More precisely, hundreds of small problems that are still being fixed. Many experts say that the F-35 has not yet been brought to a state of full combat readiness.
But the main problem is not even that. The main problem is that Russia has successfully tested and used its hypersonic weapon "Dagger", using for this one of the oldest aircraft of its Air Force. Another question is that today no aircraft in the world can compare with the MiG-31 in terms of speed and height.
In response, the United States made its own hypersonic weapons, but the trouble is: the F-22 and F-35 are not able to carry it, because when these aircraft were created, they thought about hypersonic missiles strongly for the future, and therefore the volume of the weapons compartments of the F-35 and F-22s simply do not allow such weapons to be placed there. And the external suspension of stealth aircraft is not held in high esteem, as you know.
Accordingly, someone had to move these missiles in the air, so the United States decided to follow the example of Russia: just take and make a modernized version of some old aircraft for hypersonic missiles.
It is clear that the United States did not have its own MiG-31, but by analogy with the creation of modifications based on the Su-27, which are more like completely new aircraft (yes, the Su-35S), in the States they decided to portray something based on the F -15. It was a very logical decision, the Falcon was quite suitable for this.
I twist, I twist, I want to confuse!
And at first there was a word, and the word was… F-15SA.
A model created for Saudi Arabia (and the Saudis love everything advanced), on the basis of which they made an even more sophisticated F-15QA aircraft, intended for export to wealthy Qatar. In turn, they worked a little more with the Qatari version, and the result was our F-15EX.
From the base F-15E, from which the fighter-bomber for Saudi Arabia was created, the “new” aircraft differed in a richer filling, primarily in terms of electronics.
It was a two-seat fighter that differed from the F-15 in the following components:
- new digital control system;
- new radar with AFAR AN / APG-82 (V) 1;
- Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing Systems (JHMCS) with information output to the helmets of both crew members;
- new displays with the projection of information on the lights of the pilot and weapon operator;
- upgraded General Electric F110-GE-129 engines;
- new, more powerful on-board computer with new software;
- complex EW and REM Eagle Passive Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS);
- additional weapon hardpoints.
The presence of new improved hardpoints has greatly expanded the range of ammunition that can be suspended.
The aircraft will be delivered as new from the factories, and old models of the F-15E and F-15C will be re-equipped (this is a single-seat option, which will be more fussing). The first F-15EXs have already been handed over to the US Air Force.
What is the result?
The result is something strange.
Of course, the F-15EX is two heads taller than its basic F-15E predecessor. But if anything, he will have to fight along with aircraft, which, to put it mildly, are superior to him in many ways.
F-15EX is a fourth generation aircraft, but it is one of its best representatives. Better, perhaps, only the Su-35S. Yes, it is not as stealthy as the F-22 and F-35. With subsonic cruising speed. Unable to break through layered air defense, like the F-35.
In terms of cost, the F-15EX is almost equal to the F-35 (77 million versus 80). The cost of one flight hour is also approximately equal: 27 thousand dollars for the F-15EX against 35 thousand for the F-35A.
But the F-15EX has two huge advantages over the new aircraft:
- F-15EX is capable of carrying and using hypersonic weapons on an external sling;
- F-15EX is a debugged aircraft that will simply make it possible to keep the US Air Force combat readiness at the proper level until the F-35 is brought to mind or until it goes into the NGAD series, the sixth generation aircraft that will work in conjunction with strike UAVs.
The whole question is who will have to fight against. Against the states of the third or fourth world or terrorist formations, the power of the F-15EX is more than enough even without hypersonic weapons. Against stronger opponents, it is quite possible to pair the F-15EX as a carrier of hypersonic missiles and the F-35 as a "dispersing cloud". In addition, more advanced electronics on board the F-35 will allow for target designation for the F-15EX.
Pretty controversial alignment, right?
Yes, in the States themselves, not everyone supports such a development of events. Our good friend Tyler Rogoway from "The Drive" generally lashed out at the leadership of the Air Force, who conceived such an operation. He believes that 80 units of the F-15EX is about nothing, even if we consider the aircraft solely as a carrier of hypersonic weapons.
In general, initially it was a contract for 22,9 billion dollars, under which it was planned to supply 144 F-15EX aircraft to the Air Force. Further, there was information that the number of F-15EX could be increased to 200 copies. Perhaps the plans were fairly corrected, which angered Rogovey.
In general, the US Air Force plans to decommission 2026 obsolete aircraft by 421. A replacement is planned for 304 new fighters and bombers, and the savings that will arise from the operation of a smaller fleet of aircraft will be directed to the acquisition of new and promising aircraft such as NGAD or MR-X in subsequent periods.
Of course, it is strange to watch how an aircraft that was no longer produced 15 years ago gets on the conveyor. For the United States, perhaps, everything is familiar to us. In the end, is it not our president, having entered into the meaning of spending the budget on games called PAK DA, ordered to stop perversions and re-master the production of the Tu-160. The release was mastered using the old Soviet backlog.
Roughly the same thing happens with the Su-57 and F-35. The first one has not been able to get out of the prototype stage for 20 years, although the second one has come out, and is being produced and bought, but it would be better if it lay still in the chrysalis, because the number of problems in the F-35 can only be compared with the cost of the F-35 itself.
Therefore, there is nothing special in the actions of the Americans. So what if the last US Air Force F-15E was received in 2001? It is necessary - they will start the release again, if there is everything for this.
In the end, we are also not particularly twitchy about the Su-57, because we have the Su-35S, which, at the very least, solves all issues related to the tasks of guarding and defending the country's air borders.
Exactly the same maneuver is being performed by the US Air Force today. A global upgrade of the base F-15E to the F-15EX and, as a result, the aircraft’s ability, under all previous conditions, to carry up to 22 air-to-air guided missiles or hypersonic weapons, the dimensions of which exceed the dimensions of the weapons bays of fifth-generation fighters.
Many not very knowledgeable media through the mouths of "experts" voiced the fact that the start of the production of the F-15EX is a complete failure of the F-22 and F-35 programs. Not really. F-35 has already been made more than seven hundred. Modernization of older and less modern F-15E / D and F / A-18C / D should be considered as an addition to the fleet The F-35, whose planes sooner or later will overcome their childhood illnesses.
Also, don't forget that the F-15 is the largest payload aircraft in the US Air Force outside of normal bombers. That is, the F-15 can and should be considered not as an F-35, not as a fighter-bomber, but as a fighter-bomber.
Pretty decent addition. I don’t know how quickly our engineers will debug the “Product 30” and the normal Su-57s will go to the VKS, but even after they go, it is unlikely that the Su-35s will be immediately written off and placed in museums or sold to Uganda. They will definitely fly.
And there is nothing surprising in this practice: while the new aircraft is being debugged, the old one is on combat duty for it.
Both the F-15EX and the Su-35S are great aircraft of today. The F-35 and Su-57 are the aircraft of tomorrow, which still have a long way to go on their combat path. And there is nothing fatal in the fact that older comrades are covering for young replenishment, no. Sooner or later, of course, fourth-generation aircraft will leave. But this solemn moment is still very far away.
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