What Makes America’s F-15EX So Ultimate Fighter
U.S. Military Times
Boeing’s F-15EX, the most updated F-15 variant, took to the skies for the first time yesterday with all flight systems performing as expected during a 90-minute test flight. A video of the F-15EX’s takeoff flight — flying nearly vertical just after takeoff.
In Boeing’s official announcement of the flight, Boeing vice president and F-15 program manager Prat Kumar said that the flight “proves the jet’s safety and readiness to join our nation’s fighter fleet,” noting the F-15EX’s “advanced battle management systems, sensors and weapons due to the jet’s digital airframe design and open mission systems architecture.” According to Boeing, the F-15EX’s ADCP-II computer is the “world’s fastest mission computer.”
There is still a mission for what is essentially a fighter designed and built in the pre-stealth era. The Air Force envisions the F-15EX as a sort of weapon truck, able to carry large munitions that the F-35 cannot. The F-35 can carry less than 6,000 pounds of munitions internally, whereas the F-15EX can carry almost 30,000 pounds of munitions on its external pylons. On battlefields with modern air defenses, the F-35 could stealthily collect targeting data and relay it to an F-15EX, which could then utilize advanced low-observable or hypersonic munitions to eliminate enemy targets.