For nearly three decades, the F-15 Eagle fighter was considered the undisputed king of the skies.
It is an all-weather, extremely maneuverable, tactical fighter designed to gain and maintain
air superiority in aerial combat. Until the debut of its replacement, the F-22 Raptor,
the F-15 was the U.S. Air Force’s frontline air superiority fighter.
Before the development of the F-22 Raptor, the F-15 Eagle ruled the skies. It replaced the
vaunted F-111 as the U.S. military's primary fighter bomber and, for much of its life,
it was the fast-moving air superiority fighter, king of all air superiority fighters.
Even today, a modernized Eagle is still considered a formidable opponent, and manufacturer Boeing
has proposed updated versions that could keep the airframe flying for the better part of a century.
The F-15 was designed to fly fast and deep into the heart of enemy territory to clear the skies
of pesky enemy plane. After Vietnam proved the need for a maneuverable airframe that could evade
surface-to-air missiles and engage enemy fighters, the F-15 was developed with radar, missiles,
and most importantly a gun. Those are just a few of its features. This remarkable aircraft
is getting up in years it has been around since the early '70s but it's still a crucial piece
of the U.S. arsenal. According to the U.S. Air Force, it has a perfect combat record, with over
100 victories and zero defeats. As we'll see, its success is due to its phenomenal maneuverability,
advanced electronic equipment and fearsome firepower. The highlights of its career are what
makes the airframe a legend. In much of the world, it still rules and there are many reasons why.
Now let me show you 5 reasons why the F-15 Eagle fighter might be the best fighter of all time:
1. It is fast Welcome to the world of the F-15,
whose top speed is above 1,800 mph. Its replacement, the F-22, tops out at just above
1,400. With its weight and speed, once it achieves lift in takeoff, it can shoot up at an almost
90-degree angle. The F-15 was a formidable aircraft. Early versions were powered by two
Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-100 afterburning turbofan engines, producing 14,500 pounds of static thrust
23,500 with afterburners. This gave the aircraft a thrust-to-weight ratio of greater than one, making
it so powerful that it was the first fighter to exceed the speed of sound in vertical flight.
The F-15 had so much thrust it could climb to sixty-five thousand feet in just 122 seconds.
In horizontal flight, the F-15 could reach speeds of Mach 2.5, and cruise at speeds of Mach
0.9. The F-15's cruising speed is just below the speed of sound. The bird is so fast,
some analysts think it's more than a match for Russia's fifth-generation fighters.
2. Its impressive kill record The F-15’s first air-to-air kill
was on June 27 1979, when Israeli Air Force ace Moshe Melnik shot down a Syrian Air Force MiG-21
in his F-15A. Melnik would eventually down four aircraft from
F-15As and F-15Cs, for a career total of eleven enemy fighters shot down.
Melnik’s kill was the start of a remarkable string of 104 consecutive air-to-air victories
for the F-15, with not a single Eagle lost. By all substantiated accounts, the F-15's record
in combat is a whopping 104 to zero. The F-15 and its variants were used to great effect by Israel
against Syria and Lebanon, the United States against Iraq, and the Saudis against Iran. The
F-15 was also the airframe Israel used to destroy an Iraqi nuclear facility during Operation Opera.
3. It kills The F-15 was one of the
first airframes that could track multiple enemy targets simultaneously from ranges of more than
100 miles away. Once closed in, the fighter can pop off enemies with its six-barrel, air-cooled,
electrically fired M-61 vulcan cannon, along with its impressive array of missiles and
ground munitions. The Eagle’s AN/APG-63 nose mounted radar was the most advanced of its day,
a solid state radar with “look down/shoot down” capability and a range of up to 200 miles.
This allowed the F-15 to pick out low-flying enemies on radar against the clutter generated
by the ground. The radar was also the first to incorporate a programmable system processor,
which allowed moderate upgrades to be done via software and not intrusive hardware updates.
4. Versatility If you're looking for an all-weather,
maneuverable, super-fast airframe that can carry a lot of missiles, ground bombs, avionics, more
fuel, advanced radar, and probably more, you might want to consider the F-15 and its five variants.
Though two are designed to be trainers, the others are design for air superiority
and fulfillment of a dual fighter role, supporting troops on the ground. But even the F-15E Strike
Eagle can handle some air-to-air combat, as it proved during Desert Storm. Extraordinary,
the plane is so well-built, it can even fly with significant stability after losing a wing.
5. It could take out satellites in space. When the United States wanted to include
destroying Russian satellites as part of its war plans, it had to take into
account the fact that the Russians could detect a ground-to-orbit missile launch.
So the U.S. developed an antisatellite missile designed to be fired by an F-15.
The system was successfully tested by Air Force Maj. Wilbert D. "Doug" Pearson,
who is still the only pilot with an air-to-orbit kill and this is one of the most remarkable feats
of military engineering during the Cold War was the shoot down of an actual satellite by a
fighter jet. The incident was the first and only use of the AGM-135 anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon.