you are right uavs are expendable and pilots aren't. but with the amount that our pilots are trained and the technological superiority of our fighters mean that a pilot isn't going to be lost on every mission. american pilots are better than that.

fbrets said:
"The primary mission of the navey is to protect the sea lanes."

I beg to differ- "protecting the sea lanes" is just the "PR" part of the Navy's mission today, although I have seen shows and read articles wherein that is still the stated mission. Power Projection is the primary mission today, and has been for quite a few years.

The best (short) justification for supercarriers that I can think of was reflected in a poster I saw a couple of years ago at my Squadron Reunion, showing one of the 70-series CVNs and the legend "10 Acres of Sovereign American Territory Anywhere You Want It, Any Time." (I may have slightly mis-quoted the legend from memory, but you get the idea.)

The volatile and unstable situation in Pakistan and Turkey recently provides excellent reasons why the Nimitz-Class (and subsequent) Carrier Task Group is still the best way to go (as opposed to multiple less-capable mini-carriers carrying 10-15 Harriers and Marines)- we may be denied the use of land bases in this region at any minute, and 10-15 "jump-jet" aircraft, good as the AV-8B may be for its intended purpose, i.e. close air support, cannot possibly project the power or "cover the bases" that a Nimitz/Truman-Class Carrier Air Wing can. The Nimitz CTG offers Surveillance/ELINT (AWACS), Manned and unmanned Ground Attack, absolute stealth (subs), absolute Air Superiority and Logistics all in one highly-mobile and flexible package, and that simply cannot be matched by any other ship or task group (or any other form of instantly-mobile Power Projection) that exists today or is likely to exist in the foreseeable future.

Yes, it's expensive. But worth it, IMHO. Just ask President Achmenibad (whatever) how badly Iran might like to have a few of our Carrier Task Groups, or how much sleep he loses every night wondering where they are and if they're heading his way....

Neowing,

>>
The MOST LETHAL fighter ever made shouldn't just be replaced, sure, it is getting old and maintnance costs are going up, but that doesn't mean we can't build new f-15s, with better radar, engines, etc. Instead, the F-15 and F-22 should be paired, until the F-22 has been proven in battle, and even the F-4 hasn't been replaced, even though it is one of the worst jet fighters in history. So why on earth replace the F-15 without even considering building newer, better ones??
>>

There are a lot of reasons why the F-15 is no longer adequate as a player in our kinds of ops (expeditionary into the bad guys landscape).

1. It's a broken design and always has been.
The F-15 was engineered light to give it the snapup capabilities to engage the MiG-25. Unfortunately, this lightness (more aluminum than it should have had, not enough high strength titanium or iconel), along with specific design elements like the conical cambered wing (effectively like flying around with LEF in permanent deployment) creates a _very_ aggressive aerodynamic environment that spills back all across the wings and into the empennage with the result lost wingtips, shredded stabilators and a thousand other downed-then-bandaided structural uncertainty moments. Many Eagles are more patch than pretty now and that's /after/ about half of them have had effectively new wingsets applied back in the 80s.
Similar conditions enforce limiters on the way the MRM are carried (huge spillflow from the nodding inlets tore up the fins on early AMRAAM) and the acceptable jettison envelopes of the tanks. The PW-100 engines could no longer use VMAX, even in war and the 220E mod upgrade actually takes away thrust. There have been reported problems with the gear struts cracking and the hydraulics for the CAS have always been a mess, all of which are getting harder and harder to find support for as DMS conditions take new parts out of the spares pipe and refurbished ones are not to the same quality.

2. It's Performance Compromised.
Across the board. In terms of combat persistence, the F-15 has always been short on fuel fraction (11,000lbs in the A and about 14 in the C whereas the F-14 has about 16 internal and another 3+ in supersonic capable external tanks), especially given it's design opponents performance band required long forays into supersprint this is really not an acceptable condition. The radar is not particularly amenable to upgrade, those few (late C) jets capable of accepting the upgrade into AESA also have about 400lbs of ballast in the tail. Though the ALQ-135 is finally close to giving the spectrum and spatial (FQ) coverage it should have had in 1979, it in no way matches up to the types overall signature penalty and thanks largely to the harsh Q environment, it cannot carry HARM out board to self-defend. When the NATO commanders in Italy started facing a lot of Grinder, and Post Hole type border crasher missions as Serbia tried to 'draw us offsides' during the 1990s adventure into the Balkans, they didn't ask for F-15s, they requested F-16CJs because only if you are prepared to swat snakes do you dare chase birds into a SAM thicket. Put HARM under the midwing stations and you compromise the upper shoulder positions for AAM as well as stealing wing tanks. Put CFT on the fuselage to compensate for the absent wingtanks and suddenly you're driving a cement truck on skates. And then of course there's the notorious signature issue. No jet can beat an NEZ missile that can see to track it. Not even the Raptor. Yet even the common bandaid improvements like ALE-50/55 which are being applied to the F-16 don't work on the Eagle because of the configuration (wing pylons are too close to the stabs, centerline trails into the afterburner stream etc. etc.).

The F-15 is an illustration of what happens when you take a machine designed just before the CATIA/Finite Elements mission optimization period of digital design and drag it too far forward into another age. Less missing link than Encino Man it is still not the jet that it seems to be.

ARGUMENT:
Some things I want you to think about.
A. Ask an honest pilot: It's not the crate, nor even the man in it. It's the systems and weapons. While this nominally favors your argument, the fact of the matter is that it also favors the F-16C.50+ or E and the F-35. Both of which, as new manufacture systems, give the excuse of deaging the inventory at the profit of Congress and the industrialists.
2. The most maneuverable fighter on the planet is a missile. While this again means an F-15C (or SG) with AIM-9X can theoretically /beat/ 'the better fighter' as an Su-30 with Archer, it also means that if both launch at the same time you're gonna get a lot of Pyrrhic victories. Which highlights the fact that a fighter isn't any good if it is at such risk that you cannot afford to throw it away.
3. The easiest way to beat this problem is to put a small laser jammer called a DIRCM on the 'more advanced jet' and let it burn out the optics of the inboud threat weapon. Unfortunately, the Soviets are closer to achieving that capability as a baseline than we are (low drag IRSTs with imbedded 'laser rangefinders' as part of the baseline design). And with lasers in the picture, it becomes a lot easier to point one at the 10ft canopy from 15 miles instead of a 6" missile seeker at 4.
4. There is a (fairly) new doctrinal idea out there called 'MFFC' or Mixed Fighter Forces Concept' tactics. It's also known as fighter director or 'shooter/illuminator'. What it basically comes down to is one guy emits from a safe standoff point and everyone else takes a datalink version of his 'picture' from which a common shoot list is generated to fire. While this doesn't fully remove the launch aircraft from the picture (it still helps to kinematically boost a given shot for shorter times of flight with supersonic sprinting at altitude for instance) what it does mean is that if you make the weapon /capable enough/ and the launch platform _cheap enough_ you can disperse the formation across a wider area, making it harder for the enemy to engage all of them as a function of radar cone and missile envelope overlap. What this comes down to is an in-place chainsaw option tactic and it is made even more powerful by the fact that modern AAM no longer have to be tether-tuned to operate on ONE aircraft's radar sideband. But rather can take midcourse steering from nearly any authorized network member. So that shoot and scoot takes on whole new meanings. All together, MFFC means that 4 F-16, with nominally the same missile load of 16 AMRAAM as a single pair of F-15s can (max out) to, in fact is about an order of magnitude more efficient because they are not relying on their own APG-68 radar. But rather on the APG-77 in the Raptor behind or to the side of them. With AIM-120D, they can kill targets they cannot see and then either complete their strike mission. Or retire from the battle altogether, acting as little more than spare launch rails to the F-22.
5. The Air Force has a missile they've been on and off testing for about 10 years called the MALD.It in turn has a derivative system called MALI. The Miniature Air Launched Interceptor 'ideally' costs around 75-120 grande. It only weighs about 150-200lbs. And it's just about 6ft long. i.e. Half the size of a Sidewinder. This missile can fly for 230nm or roughly 20-30 minutes. At least 10 minutes of which can be supersonic at between Mach 1.1 and 1.4. And thanks to it's decoy origins, it is GPS programmable to either follow a specific route or to sit on station until called to 'leap into action' in mimicking a strike package that is just arriving in the combat area behind it. If you were to optimize this kind of missile system into a HUNTING Air To Air Missile, you would effectively give any aircraft with spare payload capacity a Phoenix equivalent capability in a pint jar. What is most important about this system is that it is inexpensive enough to be swarmed into huge skirmish lines so that it can find even stealth targets using nothing but normal optics. And if it /misses/ it can come 'round again and make another pass. An F-22 at 50,000ft and Mach 1.78 is likely untouchable by such dogpile tactics, it is simply moving too high, too fast, in too thin air. But _every other asset_ is fair game. Including the very ISR and BMC2 systems by which the Eagle depends to gain dominant initial intercept positioning.
6. The ultimate fighter plane on our planet in 10 years time is going to have 4 engines and weigh close to a million pounds on takeoff. It will have a thrust to weight ratio on the order of .31 and a wingloading around 137lbs per square foot. It will need a minimum of 10,000ft to safely take off and land and it will require about 50 miles to successfully turn 180` at combat altitude. Do you know what aircraft that machine will be? If you said a 747 ABL-1, you are dead on correct, have a cookie. One of the reasons we are shifting to standoff munitions delivered from above 30 and even 40,000ft is simple. Ground based lasers. If you close within about 10-20km of an FDOW unreduced defensive target overlap, you will be fricasseed in your own juices. OTOH, if you fly high and make the enemy come as much as 60nm away from the target in their QRA intercept _just to prevent your hitting BRL and turnign away_, suddenly you give a platform it's own 1.2MW laser the time interval to discriminate them against a nice clear, cold, thin-aired horizon terminator. And kill them on approach. Now, the official 'weaponization' range of the YABL-1 is between 250 and 400km against fast-rise TBM/MRBM targets, depending on profile. But did you know that it has to check /behind/ the target to look for high altitude airliners and even satellites beyond? What this tells me is that, against relatively slow moving fighters coming on at 40,000ft you are looking at between 600 and 1,000km (line of sight to the horizon) ranges. What this means is that, particularly given the typical small engagement numbers involved, ONE ABL-1 could standoff, completely clear from even the most deadly of S-300/400/Aster class systems, and with perhaps a 10 instead of 4 second emission window, destroy utterly any jet on the planet. No ducking, no jamming, no cloud cover. Just BAM. And your a freeflying cinder in formation with pieces of your plane. This is a critical leap forward because it removes completely the notion that you have to operate 'outside the cover' of a penetration corridor where jammers and chaff and other penaids are protecting the main (predictable) package ingress. The latter is where the primary enemy defensive effort has traditionally been focused and it is the the premise on which the F-117 and ATF-22 were designed to free themselves from 'one target, one raid' limitations in how soon they could effect bomb delivery or target intercept. Yet it is still a clumsy system when you have to wait multiple minutes for the 'escort' or even 'MiGCAP' jets to sweep out, close up and engage an enemy. Particularly when INS autonomous weapons are involved and you're never completely sure if even stealth is 'really invisible'. If you shoot early you avoid merged plots and deconfliction issues. If you combine early shots with drones or even MALI type weapons looking right into the enemy baselane for target ID, you get a generally cleaner, quicker resolved, engagement overall.

CONCLUSION:
Air Dominance is one of the most wasteful missions you can practice in all it's various forms. It's literally flown 70% of the time, maneuvered 20% of the time and killed 10% of the time. Which means you have 'fighters' flying alongside tankers and other HVA systems as well as fighters delousing returning raiders. And fighters sweeping beyond the target to hold it safe while the package is in the combat area. And fighters waiting to run interference for CSAR assets. Even as you also have 'fighters' that are really bombers with AAM attacked but maintain supersonic performance because hey, it's cool.
However; with AAMs about to evolve to an entirely new level of capability. Multiple kill chain sources to target them without a hogs nose radar required. And thus every launch platform reduced to the basics of how many pylons it can suspend ordnance from a gun-cabinet resource _backup_ to high altitude DEWS platforms, it is pretty clear that the traditional notion of 'fightering' itself is changing.
And hence you have to measure the F-15 by values like Reliability, Maintainability and Availability on a cost-per-flying-hour basis of judgment (12-14,000, depending on variant, compared to 5,700 for an F-16C). And then correlate this to the number of actual, _available_ pylons it has to dropfire a weapon like the AIM-160B MALI. Unfortunately, the F-15 falls short in every area as a legacy platform that has next to nothing in common with the support tails as much as docrtinal systems on which our modern air doctrine is based.
Particularly given we are looking at 2015-2020 (with the F-35 less than ten years in service) _at the latest_ before threat countries like China and India as well as Russia catch up to us in high energy optical applications like groundfire equivalents of the ABL and cheap relay mirrors, I would actually rather see more resources devoted to generic UCAV platforms which cost one tenth what a modern 'fighter' does to simply make big wagon tracks in the sky until needed. Because the reality of life is that if you can put a missile just 60-100 miles off your nose for half an hour you beat what even the F-22 can do in firing an AIM-120D that takes say 3-5 minutes to fly out to half as far because the missile doesn't waste time of flight getting close. And it has full reserve thrust available for the terminal endgame maneuvers. Given you mothership that capability with a system that never has to worry about being randomly detected or exposed by high end S2A systems under it's ground track (because it is stealthier and and cheaper than a manned system), even though said mothership /and/ it's missile nominally cruise in a performance band that is closer to that of a civilian business jet, the functional 'fighter mission' will be better fulfilled with more redundant backup. While other, similar, assets carry the bombs that pound ground targets in a truly sortie-generation flexible system that maximizes the force fraction available to to 'non fighter' missions once Air Supremacy is won.


CJ

All I can say is that if the design was broken, how come it has NEVER LOST in arial combat? We have lost F-14s, F-18s, and F-16s in arial combat, but never any F-15s, check your facts before saying a design is broken.

Neowing,

Unless you believe the Syrians who had several runins with the type during the late 70s along the Golan and supposedly used MiG-25s to ambush a pair of Eagles after they used the same trick against MiG-21s, The F-15 has never lost an _air to air_ engagement.

But neither has the F-14 or 16 in U.S. service while the only Hornet loss is still listed as 'uncertain'.

However; at least 2 F-15Es, 1 F-14B and 7 F-16s have have been lost to various forms of surface to air fire. In the case of the Mudhen to AAA early on night one of Desert Storm when they foolishly went in at low level and again later in the conflict when they strayed too near a Roland missile site that had the night EOCG guidance to kill them as they flew overhead without a command link jamming capability in the lowband.

Another Israeli F-15A was effectively lost crossing the fence back out of Lebanon when, depending on whom you listen to, it either passed over a ridgeline of the Shouf high enough to take a Manpads hit. Or a MiG-21 ran it down from behind. Though not shot out of the sky, it was a writeoff on return to base.

The F-15 is routinely defeated in training, simply because everyone knows it's capabilities and runs 'anti Eagle/anti AMRAAM' tactics to embarrass it. This being why the Nellis Aggressors were shut down for instance. As for why the F-15 loses so irregularly in actual warfare that is simple:

1. The USAF trains between 120 and 200hrs per year and particularly /before combat/ surges their training to maximize their 'edge'. Where it takes a minimum of 20hrs per mission, per month, to be anywhere's near competent, only doing the Air Dominance mission makes you pretty good at it, whereas the F-16 community has at least one specialist A2G mission role and so must 'swing' between competency peaks in their training schedule.
Add to this a highly conservative approach to fighting the air dominance mission (always high and fast, always late into the game) and the Albino Eagle seldom operates in an active radar S2A environment because it uses lookin to standoff and avoids the trashfire/terminal area envelope like plague.
2. The F-15 always flies against very poorly trained foreign opponents who get the worst of the Russian's 'export' grade handoffs. A well handled F-4E will beat any MiG-23 on the planet in a dogfight or straight up missile exchange, simply because the APQ-120/AIM-7 is so much better than the Sapfir/R-24 combination and the MiG cannot put Gs on the airframe when it's wings are cycling. About the only thing the Flogger is good at is running. The MiG-21 hasn't got the legs or the weapons system to compete and particularly in the later versions is something of a kluge for handling. The Mirage F-1 actually has a fairly radar weapons system option in the Super-530F but it's Cyrano IV has been completely compromised to the USAF by the French themselves. Magic I is no better than AIM-9P2 and Magic II is not as widely exported as is thought. The key to victory in the technology race is to always make sure your enemy is responding to your previous generation rather than pioneering a _new mission_ that complete renders your approach unsustainable. That monkey-see-do competition complex is what destroyed the Soviets because we could lead them where we wanted to and they would respond according to the lie of 'similar mission, similar solution'.
3. The Latest and Greatest Just Ain't That Great.
The MiG-29 export variant is basically a heat shooter with minimal if any radar weapon capabilities as frequently it's radar does not even support the AA-10. Which is not to say that the RuAF Fulcrum is much better because the No-19 is a maze of doppler and PRF manual variables. The IRST and helmet sight should compensate for this but doesn't, thanks to low sensitivity, narrow bore cue limits and a very primitive mechanical cueing system (akin to the HMS used by the F-4S, nearly 25 years ago).
Also, contrary to popular myth, the F-15C will out maneuver the MiG-29 from almost any start condition because the latter's lack of freedom of maneuver renders it unable to fight mixed EM condition duels without departing the manual FLCS. Combine roll and vertical moves at slow speeds and the RD-33 engines spoolup problems and you have an aircraft which has /always/ been vastly overrated. It also retains the MiG-21's traditional persistence problems with low internal fraction, tanks that either cannot be jettisoned or cannot go supersonic and a very limited set of weapons options on the outboard pylons.
The Mirage 2000C is only as good as it's radar and operating radius, having to trade all heavy BVR capability for decent persistence and usually being limited in it's RDM configuration to the Super-530 it can support.
The Su-27 though crippled by the R-27, is just the opposite, having power, fuel, pylon and envelope superiorities across the board which just continue to get better and better as the Russians bring Zhuk and Bars options into the mix on the Su-30.
But the F-15 has never faced this airframe in an 'as equals' combat condition where emulation of AIM-120 full pole capabilities and MFFC has allowed a fair comparison with the still largely inferior Russian longrange AAM systems.
Again, the only real definition of combat capability is in the missile and guidance support and the doctrines that exploit them and here, exercises like Cope India are deliberately slanted to make the F-22 look good by protecting U.S. electronics options and preseting fixed ROE limits on kinematic and seeker options for our radar missiles.
Given I think it incredibly foolish to give our enemies (that's right, India, as a Russia's largest military export client state is no friend) /any/ instrumented range lookin to our system capabilities or tactics, it's a given that whatever we do will be deceptive in either the proofing or denigration of the F-15.

ARGUMENT:
You cannot suggest upgrades are enough for a 25 year old system design baseline because if you were to do so, that design would be the Flanker.

It simply has the aerodynamic and volumetric design elements to be superior to the F-15 across the board.
Multiple Wing Stations = freedom to carry varied mission stores.
20-25K internal fuel = freedom from drag and signature penaltied fuel tanks.
LEX and active rather than fixed LE cambering on an aft wing= massive drag advantagement in sprinting and much less aggressive wing aeroacoustics. Also supports a much broader static margin for any given loadouts and general pitch pointing/drag improvements.
AL31FP = F110-GE-129 in terms of thrust arc and AL-41F = F110-GE-132. While the USAF is 'happy' to have finally completed the F100-PW-220E mod which brings the F-15C up to about a mid 80s level thrust arc and lifing balance (i.e. massive derates in peacetime, massive component wear in war, all for about 24Klbst, max). To which one can only add that the F-15s fuselage Q environment is nearly as hostile as the it's wingstations and always will be thanks to the contrived nodding inlet and spill system which dumps high energy air over the single-use fuselage sides.
Sorbitsaya= much easier to mod, steerable lobe, RFCM system alternative to ALQ-135 'bump' mods for FQ coverage.
Massive Radome= huge antenna area advantage.
IRST = potential for passive engagement/fusion tracking/ID not possible on the F-15.

CONCLUSION:
The F-15 _has lost_ to the one threat that matters most: surface to air. It probably has lost air to air as well but the details are muddy because they are Israeli.
It cannot compete in the one area where it most needs to: swing missioned Air to Ground, because it lacks the targeting and pylon options to make a post SDB (40-60nm standoff) tactics dynamic useful.
And provided your BRL is that far out, the traditional interpretation of TARCAP/Sweep is needlessly dangerous in clearing the farside of a protected target so that bombers can drop SALH weapons within 6-8nm of threat defenses.
Indeed, given proper MFFC, the nominal 'bombers' can self defend or run away from any threat as well if not better (modems and mixed loads) as the Eagle can.
Finally, it's not yesterdays hero that matters. But tomorrows victim. And the victim tomorrow will be protected by loitering AAM far ahead of the strike package or destroyed by hunting skirmish lines of equivalent ground weapons, long before any 'personal' escort platform system can become useful. Add to this DEW threats and the only useful airpower will be that which sacrificial.
In this, the UCAV beats all modern jets because it has loiter, signature and force massing capabilities that no manned airframe can match.
When added to MFFC from equivalent (RQ-4 RTIP) platforms and dominant DEW, the only way forward is to completely abandon the white scarf mentality and start to play air warfare like chess. With pieces that can be sacrificed and board spacings that support cross coverage without commitment to a common (radar cone) as much as mutually supporting vulnerability.


CJ

u do have some good points CJ, but y spend hundreds of millions without even considering building brand new F-15 with upgraded and modernized computers and other design features? it would b cheaper and u wouldnt b changing a design that has been dominating the sky for close to 3 decades.

[quote]Remember as of today none of the Nimitz Carriers can carry a Stealth Aircraft. The one slated for use is the F35 but that has Vertical Take Off and Landing ability.[/quote]

Through all this interesting discussion, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it was my understanding that the F-35 was to be built in 3 variants. The Navy and Air Force versions would be similar, the exception being the Navy's would have a "beefier" airframe and landing gear to enable it to launch and land from a Nimitz-Class-Carrier while the Marine's version would be the VTOL/VSTOL version used to deploy from the smaller Carriers.

Bob

In air combat, plane for plane, win/loss ratios are about 3 things: speed, surprise and pilots. If you have speed, you often get surprise, and can get away too. If you have better (more comprehensive) pilot training you maximize everything else.

That said, every contest is about training and equipment, to which the above are features of same.

The reason to build the F-22 is the same as the reason to build a new carrier. Because we can.

There is a difference between bringing expensive, complicated equipment to production during war-time and non-war-time. In war-time, the ratio of best/easiest-to-make changes. You need the latter more than the former. In short-term-combat and non-war time, the former is preferable because the psychological advantage you gain cannot be undestated. The cold war was won through economic attricion and the east's perception that in a technological battlefield, quantity no longer had a quality all it's own.

In the end, the F-22 serves a role and should be built. But so does an upgraded F-15 AND F-35. Having all three at the ready with highly trained pilots ~ the kind of air superiority that the US has grown used to.

While we have lost F-15s in surface to air incidents, we have lost F-16s and F-18s as well, but they aren't being replaced. F-15s, proven in combat are being phased out without even a consideration of being paired with F-22s for even a short period of time. And again, upgrading F-15s would be much cheaper, especially if we were to use the F-15 ACTIVE system. Look it up on Wikipedia for more info. It has thrust vectoring and forward kinards, giving it manuverability close to if not equal to that of the F-22. The F-35 is pretty much a stealthy Harrier, and the Harrier being phased out so quickly is a problem to. We do not know if there is some problem with the lift fans used in the F-35s until we actually use them in combat. Thus, it would be wiser to at least pair the jets until completely proven in combat.

Neowing, you consider replacement because of advances in the areas of technology, physics and aerodynamics. The F-15 Eagle was designed in the 1960 and built around 60s information. Sure it has been upgraded, but the basic aero design is still a 1960s design. We have had 40 years of research and design since then. The Raptor and Lightning II use modern technology and incoporate all the features from the F-15 and those learned since. Yes there will be a testing period for both of these aircraft, but even out of the box they should by design and common sense be better than the F-15. Imagine if car companies only "upgraded" their cars instead of replacing them with new models. Where would we be? Even Porsche had to move from its venerable air-cooled engine a liquid-cooled version and while at the time it was met with resistance from "purists," the fact is that the new Porsche engines are far superior than their air-cooled counterparts. You cant upgrade the aero package beyond a certain point. You have to work within the confines of the Eagle frame and design. You can tweak and tune, but you cant change radically. Engines and avionics can be upgraded easily, but you are still stuck with the overall aero package. And that is what needs to be upgraded at a point. Only way is a new plane.

The USAF is indeed complementing the F-15 with the Raptor due to the price of the Raptor. But as others have pointed out, the Eagle does have its drawbacks. As technology to protect the human body from G forces advances, the weaknesses in the Eagle structure will become more and more apparent. Look at the Raptor. The plane can fly beyond the human body and has to have computer stops built into the flight system to stop the pilot from killing himself. The Eagle has weak points that show its old design.

And now we have an even bigger problem which is what to actually replace the F-15 with? Raptor is too expensive and the Lightning II is a multi-role aircraft. We have 730 Eagles with 545 flight capable. Only 178 Raptors. Unless the Raptor can achieve a kill ration of 5 to 1 which it has been proven to able to do, we need something else to complement the Raptor. Still I would feel more comfortable with a few more aircraft. The Eagle can not fly forever. Neither can the Raptor. What I cant wait to see is what happens in the future. There are still WWII pilots alive who flew prop driven aircraft and now we have the Raptor which was beyond INCONCEIVABLE to people back then. A plane that is virtually invisible to radar and can cruise at Mach 1.7? What's it going to be in the next 50 years? UAVS? UCAVS? They are proving to be more expensive than originally thought. Im sure they will be there, but there will ALWAYS be a need for a well trained pilot. A computer can only fly within its program parameters. It cant think on its own. It can not assess. That its major weakness.

The reality is that the Legacy Aircraft or Teen series whichever you prefer, are toward the end of their respective service lives. These are the aircraft that most people have grown up with and recognize as the face of American airpower and seeing them retired and scrapped will be difficult. They have all served honorably, far beyond what anyone could ask of them, but their time is up. To be fair, the Legacy series is all I have ever known as I was born in 1980. Those are the planes I wanted to fly growing up, especially the Tomcat. But its time to go. Better to go out on top than on the bottom. Because the bottom for a plane is the bottom of the ocean or the ground.