The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] today in St. Louis unveiled the F-15 Silent Eagle (F-15SE), a new F-15 configuration designed to meet the future needs of international customers.
“The F-15 Silent Eagle is designed to meet our international customers’ anticipated need for cost-effective stealth technologies, as well as for large and diverse weapons payloads,” said Mark Bass, F-15 Program vice president for Boeing. “The innovative Silent Eagle is a balanced, affordable approach designed to meet future survivability needs.“
Improvements in stealth include coatings and treatments on the aircraft. With the added advantage of redesigned conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) that allow for internal weapons carriage, the Silent Eagle becomes a very attractive fighter for Boeing’s international customers.
Depending on the specific mission, the customer can use the CFTs that are designed for internal carriage or change back to the traditional CFTs for optimum fuel capacity and external weapons carriage. The Silent Eagle will be able to internally carry air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-9 and AIM-120 and air-to-ground weapons such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and Small Diameter Bomb (SDB). The standard weapons load used on current versions of the F-15 is available with the traditional CFTs installed.
Boeing timed this perfectly. One month before Secretary Gates puts the kibosh on Lockheed’s F-22 program, Boeing swoops in with a highly versatile, 5.5 generation fighter that’s both deadly and cost effective (the Stealth Eagle was announced in mid-March).
Boeing seems to be gearing this program towards overseas clients, with the USAF looking ahead to the inevitable massive JSF purchase. Fair enough. But would it hurt to beef up our inventory with a couple F-15SE squadrons? Halting F-22 production has put an enormous gap in the Air Force’s fleet, so the introduction of a cheap, flexible, capable, and stealthy fighter practically has a bow on it. The old USAF, pre-decapitation, would sniff at any technology that’s anything less than cutting edge and exciting. Today’s boys in blue are more open to innovation.
If nothing else, it’s worth a look.
Aside: Each time I read “F-15SE” I want to say “F-15 Strike Eagle” instead of Stealth Eagle. Annoying.
Good Evening Folks,
A Game Changer
Tomorrow in the Aviation press General Atomic will announce the Predator C “Avenger”. If the F-22 is a Generation 5 aircraft, then the Avenger is surly the first of Generation 6.
A general description, visually it will look like most Predators, the only noticeable difference that most people will pick up on is that the propeller is missing, thats because It’s a jet power aircraft.
The released specs. will say that the Avenger on internal fuel can stay up for 20 hours, with a speed of 400 Knots and an operational ceiling of 60K ft. Although not specified the Avenger will be able to be weaponized.
The big thing though is that the Avenger will be able to fly off and be recovered by CV’s. It will have a tail hook and folding wings. But better then that with an inexpensive modification the Avenger will be able to operate off LHD’s and similar ships.
Unlike weapon systems from Lockheed, Boeing and the like, the Avenger will be quickly tested and be put into production. The airframe has manny common parts with previous Predators and the engine and avionics are off the shelf.
The Avenger could be operational and in the air by this Summer. The Maritime variant, with the tail hook and folding wings can be in the fleet by this Fall. The Predator C Avenger like the rest of the Predator line has been internally funded by GA.
GA tends to like with the rest of the predator line keep the cost down so that several airframes can be bought. Needless to say the Avenger will be a huge asset to Army and Marine Battalion commander and up who will be able to monitor the margins of the battle zone and take action all in real time.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
@DominionofOne:
“What part of ‘ALL AROUND’ did you not understand? F22 or those Eurotrash planes have no ground attack of any consequence…“
Rafale: Designed as multi-role combat aircraft from the beginning
Typhoon: Designed as fighter and turned into a multi-role combat aircraft in the meantime (just like F-15 and F-16 were pure fighters early on).
The F-22 and F-15SE are the ones with minimal ground attack payload and the F-35 isn’t even close to the ground attack payload of a Rafale, Typhoon or late F-15.
Ground attack payload requirements aren’t large when the major difficulty is to find targets (as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo), but it’s very important in target-rich and less restricted conventional warfare.
There is no replacement for the A-10. The best thing the AF can do is maintain wat they have, coz there is no better CAS aircraft. Unless its an unmanned drone with a significant payload. I still think the F-15SE is a good move. Money is tight these days, we must choose wisely.
Sven,
Just accept it we arent buying the rafale.
There is no need to replace the A-10 right now or in the foreseable future. Its the greatest ground attack platform ever devised.
Byron,
You will give linky or i will kill you!!!
So why cant we convert a few cheap freighters for drone ops park em near pirate zones?
Good Morning to you Vulcan,
As usual you are a few bricks short of a load. What I’m talking about is a quantum leap in technology here, not trying to extend the life of legacy airframes.
Two things about you short sighted ideas, one the Air Force is being kicked out of the ground attack loop, with your claim to be a SF guy I would think you would welcoming leaving the Air Force types who had the only comm. to call in the big hurt at the PX and do it with your own resources. You sure don’t sound like SF to me.
Second. I left out part of the story regarding the Predator C Avenger, to give Christian a chance to catch up, and that is what’s happening over at China Lake and a developing weapon system call “Spike”.
When it is a fully matured system, and that could very well be in this calender year, Spike will give the UAV’s a lethal (Predator, X-45 and X-47, so far) capacity for the ground attack mission on the battle field that the A-10 and other manned systems, that have to find a gas station every couple of hours, then could haven’t even have dreamed of just a couple of years ago, and at radically reduced costs.
Translated Vulcan, that means far greater fire power on call for the guys on the ground, at less cost, with more TOT and under direct control of the on site ground commander. And as an extra special bonus the ground commander will have direct streaming live video of his battle space and real time reconnaissance that is not filtered through an AF bladder.
Like the manned AFV’s that Sec. Gates killed off last week when he asked for a universal controller, at this time it’s a software project, the hardware mostly already exists and all that is needed is miniaturization and battle hardening, for all Army UV’s Space, Air, Ground or on the waters and that the FCS platforms will be unmanned.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Um what? whos Vulcan…and i never claimed to be SF?…
/head explodes for the confusion
Now im not saying we dont need unmanned vehicles far from it i think we need them bad from the predator to the Mule. Unmanned systems could reinforce and back up manned troops on the ground at sea and in the air at many many task.
What I worry about most in reguards to these systems isnt there effectivness or there trust worthiness but there vulnerability to hackers.
And ive always figured the best ppl for ground attack where like the marines in the navy, Other ground forces. Control and operation of the A-10 and other ground attack assets are best controled there. Let the Airforce control air superiority and heavy bombers and such.
ProjectThor was the self professed ex SF soldier(if there is such a thing).
It’s scary how fast UASs are taking over the close air support role. Fix the bandwidth and situation awareness issues, and they may just start taking over the air superiority role.
@Valcan:
You better accept reality and what others wrote in reality. I didn’t write about buying Rafales or phasing out A-10’s, so it’s entirely laughable to imply it (like you did).
You overestimate your mental powers if you think that you can read others’ minds.
Posted by: Sven Ortmann at April 20, 2009 02:12 PM
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Ok i thought you were saying we needed to replace our A-10’s with rafale for ground attack…ok so nm. But seriously what is the main force drawing fighter construction up so high? Is it the multi tasking? Stealth? or a combination of many, many, factors.
Im not saying the Rafale isnt a good aircratf im just saying it isnt something i nessesarily believe we need atm especialy at 160mil a pop. F35 can take care of that with a few modifications it could be even better but we all know it will continue to evolve like all aircraft, weapons systems.
—————————————
“You better accept reality and what others wrote in reality.“
Now seriously.….….WTF are you ppl talking about?!?!?!
When have i ever claimed to be a SF guy? Are you guys on crack?
I think that pretty soon most ground attack roles will be filled by drones and such with pilots doing most of the air to air training.
With reguards to my comments on the A-10. I wasnt saying the A-10 should never be replaced just that there is no manned attack platform to beat it. If were going to replace the A-10 and im not saying we should at all. That we should focus on a more robust and powerful drone platform.
Now if any of yall can seriously tell me what about that makes no sence? Iseriously might hug you.
ProjectThor was the self professed ex SF soldier(if there is such a thing).
THANKYOU!!!
Someone remembers me!
/Looks offended
You make a great point Drake its hard to even remember what drone tech was like in 2001 immagine it in another 10 yrs. O.o
We should not be sacrificing our ability to achieve air DOMINANCE! We either have dominance or we don’t. We can’t sorta, kinda have air dominance. If the F-15SE is not the best fighter in the world then we shouldn’t be using it for our air dominance role. If we can’t afford all the AF wants we should be sacrificing capability elsewhere. Air dominance is the most important role and hardest to achieve mission for our air force.
Do we really need an all stealth AF? If our future conflicts are going to be like Iraq or Afganistan, do we really need stealth fighters to do CAS and tactical bombing when we have air DOMINANCE? Does this Hi-Lo mix strategy make sense today? It seems like it should be a mix of 3 different types of roles. One for complete air dominance, one for 1st day of war multirole and air defense suppression stealth fighter, and one cheaper multirole fighter for everything else.
With enough of the right aircraft to achieve and maintain air DOMINANCE almost any legacy/4th gen aircraft can fill the CAS and tactical bombing roles.