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prior this month, the us Air drive actually dropped an enormous curtain to demonstrate its latest fighter jet: the F-15EX Eagle II. The ceremony at Eglin Air force Base in Florida marked the legit debut of the twin-engine plane, comprehensive with puffs of fog to set the scene.

despite some complaints in regards to the jet’s uncreative new identify, the Boeing-made fighter deserves a close seem. Manufacturer-new plane models don’t regularly enter provider, and when they do, they fly for a long time.

This model F-15 is the latest in a protracted line of aircraft with equivalent names dating lower back to the Nineteen Seventies, so it will also be hard to understand exactly what is new about this grey winged desktop. Right here’s every thing you may are looking to understand concerning the F-15EX Eagle II and its metal ancestors—plus what one pilot says is the craft’s key weakness in 21st-century battles.

The F-15EX at its unveiling on April 7. Samuel King Jr. / US Air force The history of the F-15 Eagle

if you shut your eyes and picture a customary fighter jet—the variety you could see in a movie—you’re doubtless imaging anything like an F-15 or F-sixteen. (although in case you’re considering suitable Gun, those were F-14 Tomcats.)  All these letters and numbers can get confusing, so here’s what to know concerning the essence of the F-15 Eagle.

The Eagle is a toddler of the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, and it had a simple intention: to excel at air-to-air fighting. “It comes from this wonderful ancient moment,” says Michael Hankins, a curator with the countrywide Air and area Museum who is writing a e-book on each the F-15 and F-16. He pegs its genesis in 1964. “There’s a faction of folks, within the Air force anyway, which have this concept that the natural fighter mission, specializing in air-to-air combat, has no longer been thoroughly paid consideration to.”

[Related: I flew in an F-16 with the Air Force and oh boy did it go poorly]

The Eagle grew out of that single-purpose mission. “The catchphrase grew to be ‘now not a pound for air-to-floor,” Hankins says, that means the plane wouldn’t be geared up for dropping bombs. “It became all about air-to-air combating.”

It’s a simple conception: create a flying hammer, now not an airborne Swiss military Knife.

The plane flew for the first time in the early Nineteen Seventies, and Hankins says that within the a long time for the reason that it has done its mission superbly. “It’s bought a fantastic popularity,” he notes. “you can’t deny that the F-15 is likely one of the best air-to-air warring parties in background, and i think it’s one of the most iconic.”

The F-15: an eye like a pizza pie

To be in a position to see distant adversaries, the jet mandatory a sturdy radar.

“They designed the aircraft in keeping with the radar dish,” says Brian Kamp, who flew the F-15 for 3 many years and goes through the callsign Spiderman, or just Spidey. (which you can hearken to him talk about the Eagle on the Fighter Pilot Podcast.) He notes that the radar dish, which is determined in the plane’s nostril, in front of the cockpit, measures around 3 feet vast. “That’s a beautiful massive pizza,” he says.

That dish enables the aircraft to notice enemies from far-off, so pilots might theoretically shoot them earlier than they may even visually see them. But the reality of combat, and the “fog of battle,” Kamp says, made the assignment greater advanced. “You don’t understand if you can shoot this enemy aircraft, because you don’t recognize if it’s an enemy,” he notes. “There’s friendlies throughout, there’s confusion, so you must on occasion get into a visual arena, and get right into a dogfight.”

however despite the complexity of air-to-air combating, the effects from the Eagle, whose job turned into to “win the skies,” have been stellar. The F-15C mannequin, he notes, “has the top-quality record in history of aerial combat.” Its efficiency: “104 victories, zero losses, air-to-air.”

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