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. 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. The F-15EX, USAF argues, is essentially an in-production aircraft. The F-15Cs will age out of the inventory faster than new F-35s can come on line, reducing the available fighter fleet 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 Air Force’s arguments for the F-15EX turn on preserving capacity. 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. 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. Designed as air superiority fighters and first fielded in the 1970s, the F-15Cs were planned to have retired by now. The opening for the F-15EX results from the age and condition of today’s F-15Cs. The 2020 budget submission shows the Air Force buying 24 fewer F-35s over the next five years compared to last year’s plan.Īn Advanced F-15 during system and flight control testing in Palmdale, Calif. 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. 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.
F22 v f35 upgrade#
Separately, the 2020 budget request also includes $949 million to upgrade existing F-15s.Īdding 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. 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. 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. The new airplanes are very similar to the export versions now being built for Qatar. The Air Force’s fiscal 2020 budget request includes $1.1 billion to buy the first eight of a planned 144 F-15EX aircraft. Though the Air Force denies it, the two jets are competing for inevitably limited dollars within the service’s fighter portfolio.
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. 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. 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. Check out Air Force Magazine‘s comprehensive infographic to learn how the F-35A and F-15EX stack up against each other when it comes to production costs, performance, fuel capacity, service life, and more.
0 kommentar(er)
