Boeing F-15EX / F-15QA and related variants

Going again with old reliable Ex, after affair with the f-22, sounds way more ironic than those combos IMHO
 
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TomcatViP said:
And know I am wondering what form would take a GE F-110 powered Honda Civic... :eek:
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I can imagine a Honda Civic with a GE F-110-GE-132 mounted on it in an episode of "Top Gear" with Jeremy Clarkson in the driver's seat saying "Let's find out what it's like to drive a Honda Civic powered by an F-110 at 32,500Lb thrust at full reheat, I bet it will take off like rocket"

Jeremy Clarkson engages full reheat with the reaction "Bloody hell this car is hotter than a beef-vindaloo".
 
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NMaude said:
I can imagine a Honda Civic with a GE F-110-GE-132 mounted on it in an episode of "Top Gear" with Jeremy Clarkson in the driver's seat saying "Let's find out what it's like to drive a Honda Civic powered by an F-110 at 32,500Lb at full reheat, I bet it will take off like rocket"

Jeremy Clarkson engages full reheat with the reaction "Bloody hell this is hotter than a beef-vindaloo".
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Not an F-110 but:
www.instagram.com

Luigi Vendittelli on Instagram: "The infamous Honda Jet Car . In 1982, Bob Lazar and his Honda Jet car were featured on the front page of the Los Alamos Monitor newspaper. On that same day, Edward Teller (The father of the Hydrogen Bomb) was givi

334 likes, 12 comments - lvendittelli on January 17, 2024: "The infamous Honda Jet Car . In 1982, Bob Lazar and his Honda Jet car were featured on the front page of the Los Alamos Monitor newspaper. On that same day, Edward Teller (The father of the Hydrogen Bomb) was giving a lecture at the...
www.instagram.com www.instagram.com
 
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Boeing's F-15 demo team is flying an Advanced Eagle airshow performance this weekend at the Spirit of St Louis event, prior to heading overseas for both RIAT and Farnborough marketing opportunities next month. Judging by the paint, looks like a QA rather than an EX...not sure if these are going to remain Boeing property in the long term, or are just making a Boeing tour before delivery to the Middle East, or what. Guessing the latter.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Jg8bIgBxU


Anyway, nice to see the extra AMRAAMs in flight. I bet a lot of local workers who design and build were there for the event too. From what I understand, even Budweiser's clydesdale horses showed up!
 
DoD nomenclature has gone to hell across the board. F-15EX sounds like medication. That said, F-15F doesn't sound cool so that should be used for the "foreign" models (marketing F-15K, F-15RS, F-15SA, and F-15QA). F-15G sounds much better and I like it.
[Make Eagles Great Again - F-15G Great Eagle :confused:]
 
trang said:
DoD nomenclature has gone to hell across the board. F-15EX sounds like medication. That said, F-15F doesn't sound cool so that should be used for the "foreign" models (marketing F-15K, F-15RS, F-15SA, and F-15QA). F-15G sounds much better and I like it.
[Make Eagles Great Again - F-15G Great Eagle :confused:]
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Should have replaced the Sparkvark with the F-15G.
 
sferrin said:
Should have replaced the Sparkvark with the F-15G.
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I read somewhere that USAF project evaluators actually preferred the Eagle (or, in second place, the Tornado ECR) over the F-16 as their ideal replacement for the F-4G, back before the CJ Vipers came along. Don't know for sure that it's true, but it was pretty interesting given the signature advantages of the F-16. Maybe it came down to power generation and space for antennas & computers?

The subject also has me wondering how easily/effectively an Advanced Eagle could add standoff jamming to its repertoire. I know there's already some innate ability with the AESA and EPAWSS, but what I mean is a more robust, area jamming effect via carriage of ALQ-99 or NGJ pods. Perhaps the Eagle wouldn't need the complex battlespace awareness receiver antennas of a true EW aircraft, since the F-35s already have pretty good awareness and can share that info. Also, since the EX's radar is already highly common with the Growler's in the back end, perhaps some of the integration work would already have a head start too.
 
Josh_TN said:
If the F-35 has the appropriate awareness, why not just use them?
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The pods aren't integrated with its avionics.

I figure that integrating the pods with the radar and ew systems of the F-35 would be a massive and highly expensive job, and it's one that AFAIK hasn't been paid for at all to this point. But with the future of penetrating jamming clearly being CCAs, investing in a big project on the scale of an EF-35 or EA-35 imo doesn't make much sense. Whereas the AN/APG-82(v)1 of the Advanced Eagles is highly similar to the radar of the Growler, which is already integrated with the ALQ-99, so potentially could be comparatively quick and cheap for the Eagle to pick up, even if it meant turning off or removing EPAWSS from certain jets. And once the Navy finishes the development of the NGJ, then same story, different pod.

Also, since trying to put all that transmitting powah inside the payload bays would probably lead to some....interesting....results, I further assume that the jamming payloads would end up in external carriage. That would either defeat the F-35's signature advantage, or force you to invest in a new pod shape, or both. Yet for any situation where you have both F-15s and F-35s, I think you'd rather have the transmissions come from the Eagle in the first place, and keep the F-35 stealthy. The jamming F-15s won't be penetrating into IADS, of course, but again, the future of penetrating jamming is CCAs anyway. So if you're defending, say, distributed Phillipenes airbases with F-15EXes, you could add jamming capability to try to fog up their long range missile targeting, and do it from the same aircraft you're using en masse for defensive counter air, with just a light salting of F-35s/Rivet Joints/USN ships/carrier air wings for any awareness needs. Should apply to Japan, Korea, etc as well. It could be a cheap way to get a nice extra edge.
 
I do not see why any pods are necessary? The F-35 is an out of the box SEAD aircraft. It perhaps lacks a high intensity mid band jammer like the Growler, but I would argue for USAF purposes that does not matter: they are organizing along stand in weapons fired from stealth aircraft and stand off weapons from legacy aircraft. They have no plans or doctrine for escort jammers.
 
Part of the reason the USMC retired their EA-6Bs without replacement is that the F-35 has significant jamming capabilities off-the-shelf in all 3 versions.
Not just self-defense, there are DECM* modes in its main radar that produce significant "area effect" active jamming ability.

Combined with the low-observable characteristics of the Lightning II this negates the need for separate jamming aircraft to accompany an all-F-35 strike.

The USN couldn't do the same, as they still plan to operate F/A-18E/Fs for decades to come - thus the development of the EA-18G Growler.

Who knows what the USAF plans... I agree with sferrin that the EF-111A should have been replaced by an EF-15F** in 1998 when the EF-111A retired. [The USAF decided to just borrow USN or USMC EA-6B detachments instead].



* Deceptive Electronic Counter Measures

** F-15G was a proposed F-4G Wild Weasel replacement in 1986 - F-16Cs were modified for that role instead.
F-15F was never used for any proposal known to the public.
 
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I too really wanted the F-4G Wild Weasel to be replaced by an EF-15F/G too BlackBat242 but the USAF went for the HARM carrying F-16C instead which was a bad mistake in my view.
 
FighterJock said:
I too really wanted the F-4G Wild Weasel to be replaced by an EF-15F/G
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What really should've happened with the F-4Gs is being sent back to Boeing and be refurbished. That is each airframe be completely dismantled. All fatigued components identified and replaced by new components before the aircraft was reassembled with new equipment. IMO retiring the F-4Gs along with the F-111s and EF-111As was a very seriously shortsighted mistake.
 
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Josh_TN said:
I do not see why any pods are necessary? The F-35 is an out of the box SEAD aircraft. It perhaps lacks a high intensity mid band jammer like the Growler, but I would argue for USAF purposes that does not matter: they are organizing along stand in weapons fired from stealth aircraft and stand off weapons from legacy aircraft. They have no plans or doctrine for escort jammers.
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What I'm thinking is that the modern battlefield is going to involve a ton of guided weapons crossing through the FEBA into blue force territory, as well as red air attempting to enter the areas you're performing DCA over. My proposal for the modern era is about making your 4th gen air defense aircraft into jamming and EW weapons to aid them as interceptors over your own territory.

While it most definitely still includes classic air defense, it's now heavily also about non-kinetic kills of missiles, drones, precision glide bombs, etc -- hurting their targeting, hacking them, frying their circuits, or interfering with their launch platform's ability to target them in the first place. ("Interception" can be anything that breaks their kill chain, not just kinetic destruction of the object.) My interest in the pods comes from the assumption (could be wrong) that nose cone AESAs are really nice for narrow beam attacks on specific point targets, but not as good as ALQ-99s or NGJs for area coverage. So the main purpose of the pods is breaking the kill chains of enemy missiles and drones over blue force territory, not aircraft vs aircraft, nor aircraft vs IADS. My original post mentioned the F-15G in an 80s context, but SEAD isn't the mission I'm talking about now.

With the Air Force still having lots of Eagles, I feel like there's going to be a lot of cases of F-35s operating over red territory and Eagles and Vipers defending blue force territory, while occasionally launching JASSMs and the like. So while you'd rather just have a force composed entirely of F-35s, you don't, and then the question is, are there affordable ways to leverage what you do have?

And two things we do have are (1) lots of F-15s, and (2) existing, already paid-for investment in pods integrated with Eagle-ish radars.
 
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NMaude said:
What really should've happened with the F-4Gs is being sent back to Boeing and be refurbished. That is each airframe be completely dismantled. All fatigued components and replaced by new components before the aircraft was reassembled with new equipment. IMO retiring the F-4Gs along with the F-111s and EF-111As was a very seriously shortsighted mistake.
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In the end the CJs were up to the task. And the F-35 is effectively a purpose built SEAD aircraft sold as a fighter. All it’s missing is the AGM-88 integration.
 
books said:
What I'm thinking is that the modern battlefield is going to involve a ton of guided weapons crossing through the FEBA into blue force territory, as well as red air attempting to enter the areas you're performing DCA over. My proposal for the modern era is about making your 4th gen air defense aircraft into jamming and EW weapons to aid them as interceptors over your own territory.

While it most definitely still includes classic air defense, it's now heavily also about non-kinetic kills of missiles, drones, precision glide bombs, etc -- hurting their targeting, hacking them, frying their circuits, or interfering with their launch platform's ability to target them in the first place. ("Interception" can be anything that breaks their kill chain, not just kinetic destruction of the object.) My interest in the pods comes from the assumption (could be wrong) that nose cone AESAs are really nice for narrow beam attacks on specific point targets, but not as good as ALQ-99s or NGJs for area coverage. So the main purpose of the pods is breaking the kill chains of enemy missiles and drones over blue force territory, not aircraft vs aircraft, nor aircraft vs IADS. My original post mentioned the F-15G in an 80s context, but SEAD isn't the mission I'm talking about now.

With the Air Force still having lots of Eagles, I feel like there's going to be a lot of cases of F-35s operating over red territory and Eagles and Vipers defending blue force territory, while occasionally launching JASSMs and the like. So while you'd rather just have a force composed entirely of F-35s, you don't, and then the question is, are there affordable ways to leverage what you do have?

And two things we do have are (1) lots of F-15s, and (2) existing, already paid-for investment in pods integrated with Eagle-ish radars.
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The 99 mid bands are ancient and ineffective. The NGJ is effective in its frequency range, but what exactly is it going to be jamming? What opponent weapons use frequencies that it would cover? As for opponent fighter radars - just use the F-15s radar instead, same as F-35.

The USN has unique defensive jamming requirements that make NGJ more useful. However even they have noted that the Growler effectively has a combat radius of ~ 300nm due to the drag. So it is hard to support offensively. The MALD-N seems to be the main offensive counter measure. I suspect that a billion no competition contract to Raytheon last year was in fact a multi year buy of several thousand MALD-Ns.
 

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