I am agog, pray tell....

I'm not sure if I understood the question correctly, but F-15E derivatives include the F-15I, F-15S, F-15K, F-15SG, F-15KSE and a few other variants that escape me just now. Was that the question?

FlyPony,
Unless I am badly mistaken, I thought the F-35 was designed to replace F-15s and F-16s, no matter the updates and virtually all other aging USAF aircraft including the A-10s according to Lockheed Martin and the US DoD. All of this, at a cost yet to be determined, but fully expected to exceed $1 trillion when all is said and done. Now, due to technical difficulties, it seems the F-35s requires previously unforeseen protection support, most likely when leaving the air combat scene when "stealth" doesn't matter as much as when entering. So with less than 200 F-22s available, do you really think the F-15s and F-16 will be around still in 2045, e.g., 30 years from now to escort the F-35 safely home? After all, the USAF desires and will probably get over 1,400 F-35s. IMHO, the F-35s are supposed to be around far longer than any of the aircraft you mentioned, but one never knows for sure, the way the F-35 program continues to unfold.
TD

FP,

The USAF have a limited number of F-15Es ground attack aircraft being flown into the ground. They have a life of 9000 hours and the vast majority are over 21 years old and past 6000 hours life.

F-15 SLEP funding is being put into the F-15C force to keep it going until the F-X enters service. Offensive funding is looking at the swivel to the Pacific and the LRSB. The F-15E is supposed to be replaced by......the F-35.

I am just interested to understand where you see the funding coming from to keep the F-15E flying, to assume the air superiority role, as a small legacy fleet with all the support costs involved, as an affordable option to giving the role to the F-35 itself?

(Or designing the F-X to do it from the start of course)

With its planned 1763 F-35s, 187 F-22s and a notional 1900-aircraft force, the idea is that the F-35 does replace the F-15C and F-15E.

However, even at 80 jets per year, planned production continues until 2040 (2038 buy year). Since any major upgrade of the F-16 has been :mad:canned for the foreseeable future, the F-15C/D/E will soldier on until then.

ORAC - This will require some extraordinary life extension, and I suspect Boeing plans to supplement that with new airplanes.

Proposed:
LINK

Funded: re-baseline because of congressional continuing resolution issues for new programs.
LINK

Quite scandalous that for a decade or so the USAF hierarchy quietly [no pun intended] sat on the radio and data isolation of over a two thirds of their offensive aircraft fleet.....

But, as with F-35 and F-22 programs before, perhaps we shouldn't be that surprised...

Boeing Positions F-15 as F-22 Supplement

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — In an effort to extend its F-15 business, Boeing unveiled a new upgrade package for the F-15C design — one specifically targeting an air superiority gap left from the decision to cut production on the F-22. The new design, part of an effort dubbed "F-15 C2040" by the company, would double the number of air-to-air weapons carried by the F-15C from eight to 16 while adding conformal fuel tanks for enhanced distance.........

Speaking to reporters later in the day, Gen. Hawk Carlisle, the head of Air Combat Command, acknowledged that a capability upgrade would be nice, but that a service life extension program, or SLEP, is more important. "When we look at the stress tests we've done on the F15C and were doing on the F15 and F16 there are issues were gonna have to do for service life extension with respect to the structural integrity of the airplane, so were working on those and what were gonna have to do in the future. If I could find a way with resources, I would do everything I could when we put those airplanes in to do a service life extension program and fix the structural issues........."

look at how long they've kept the B-52 in service..............

and does anyone think that the US will buy 1700+ F-35's??

HH,

Given their relative flight profiles, and employment, how much of it's fatigue life does a B-52 use up in a year compared to an F-15?

Also, given that aircraft tended to be "over engineered" in the 50s and 60s, and that weight saving was presumably less of an issue for the B-52 than the F-15, perhaps fatigue in general is less of an issue for the B-52?


Just a couple of thoughts - no doubt someone more informed will be along shortly!

CFTs? Goodness, I must have been dreaming when I was flying them all those years ago.

Interesting, CM - F-15Cs can carry CFTs, and there are photos around of USAF F-15Cs with CFTs, but none seem very recent and a lot of them are IS-coded. I don't know what the story is.

HH & Biggus,

Info on the B-52 fatigue life:

One B-52H was badly damaged a couple of years ago so another was brought out of the Arizona graveyard and refurbished to replace it.

I do think the USAF will get 1700 F-35s in the end. The Washington, DC Congressional folks will assure that happening. It is a political airplane where work and jobs were created in nearly every Congressional district. Any Congressman/woman that doesn't support it risks the tag of a job destroyer and probably will not get reelected, reelection happens to be their main focus year after year, everything else is secondary.

Ain't that the truth TD, ain't that the truth.....the military/industrial complex have [sic] done a good job with this one..

Things to remember:

Even if all goes to plan, about 700 of the USAF's planned F-35s will be ordered in 2030 or later.

The Congresscritters who will vote on those buys are still serving time on school boards, on city councils, or fetching coffee on the Hill.

2030 is 15 years away. What did you think 2015 would look like in 2000, before the Cole bombing?

LO,
Or, will be political neophytes with no experience whatsoever. Very quickly the newcomers to Washington, DC are taught the ropes of power and survival by those that are there and existing agenda moves forward with little change. K Street lobbyist and now unlimited corporate $$s to political PACs assure that.

If you are asking about Middle-East landscape change, pre-2000 to current, it was predictable prior to the October 2000 Cole attack that significant change was occurring. In fact, there was a similar, but not well publicized attack in January 2000 on the USS The Sullivans also in Aden. The attack failed because the explosives in the boat were too heavy, the boat sank and the attack aborted.
The US policy and strategy in the Middle-East was fixed in concrete for 40 years leading to the Cole, but nothing geopolitical ever stays the same. Al-Qaeda came into existence prior to the Cole and was responsible for the 1998 US Embassy bombings prior to the Cole. The US had no strategy to deal with the Al-Qaeda organization until after 9/11 just as today there is no strategy in dealing with ISIS. I have always been an admirer of Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War. It isn't so much battlefield tactics that win wars, but strategies. Here is one of Sun Tzu's comments:

F-35 in cammo at Ft. Worth, spotted on google maps
 

Does anyone have any information on this camoflaged F-35 dumped on the north side of Fort Worth? I imagine it is a mockup or RCS article, but have not seen this paint job before, much more interesting than the boring gray. I don't think she is the roof mounted antenna bird, as that is still on the factory roof. Thank you.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Fo...af8bf8dd69acbd

So, the Liberals have won the Canadian general election.....

Goodbye F-35s, hello marijuana: What the Liberals are likely to do first

5. Fighter jets

The Liberals have promised to cancel the Conservative purchase of F-35 jets, which is expected to cost $44 billion over the jets’ four-decade life cycle. “We will immediately launch an open and transparent competition to replace the CF-18 fighter aircraft,” the platform says, specifying that the F-35’s “stealth first-strike capability” is not needed to defend Canada.

I guess Team F-35 can stop carrying those 65 orders on their books.

This will be a nice tasty competition for all concerned, and an interesting dilemma for the JSF crew. Do they punish Canadian industry for its apostasy, thereby disrupting their supply chain and scuppering any chance of a Round Two win, or set a precedent for other ditherers?

I doubt sanity is about to prevail though....