Thread: Old school jet retooled to fight J-20 and other Stealth planes

They're going to. That's been the plan since the SecDef cut the legs out from under the AF.

The backbone of the USAF in 2060 will be B-52s and F-15s. By then B-52s would have been in service for 100 years. They should have another few hundred years left in the frame.

Honestly the basic airframe design should be fine. I personally see no real problems with careful well thought out retakes on the F-15 basic structure, with new avionics. I DO see a severe problem with carrying forward decades old high performance airframes. As a cost saving measure to provide enough fairly capable airframes on hand I sort of like the idea of having a select number of a rugged durable airplane built or rebuilt every decade or so to cover various contingencies. It becomes at that point more of a series of questions about, is it more cost effective to have a single logistics line? Is your bang for your dollar better if you design and test a new completely up to the minute airplane then tool up to get it into play versus hey toss in another eagle modernization program, and update them as they come in for phased inspection, while keeping up low level production to replace attrition losses, and replace worn-out airframes.

Yes this old plane has carried me through alot, We've replaced the wing spars twice, the entire frame on 3 occasions and had to reskin it because it was more patch panels than new; I've seen 4 complete avionics software rewrites and not a single black box is even made by the company that designed the original I was trained on all those years ago, and we've even needed to change the upholstery on the ejection seat where I pissed myself when the left engine ate FOD and went out. I love this old plane, we've upgraded and replaced nearly every screwplate and circuit board, but the tail number and the back-up mechanical altimeter are are the same so yeah me and this plane we're good together and go way back.

Originally Posted by gunnut

The backbone of the USAF in 2060 will be B-52s and F-15s. By then B-52s would have been in service for 100 years. They should have another few hundred years left in the frame.

You know, sometimes I wonder why they don't just build some more BUFFs. Why bother with a new design when the old one works so well?

I don't think the F-15 will be providing avionics support to the F-22 or F-35. The area able to host the radar suite might be bigger in the Eagle, but the Raptor can get much closer without being detected in turn. If anything the Eagle would likely being doing missile truck duty. The F-22's would hunt other 5th gen fighters and provide info for the Eagles to hunt the enemies legacy fighters.

Where the US faces challenges is in AWACS, our once impressive lead is now a slight tailing. A large very sophisticated and powerful airborne AESA with a very powerful FLIR mated to it is needed eventually.

The tooling and production line has been shut down since the 60's, It was conceivable to me a couple of years ago that the production line for F-15's in japan shut down in the mid-90's might be available for use, This was promptly shit down by Boeing people as that line has been closed for years almost a decade next to nothing survives from it you would essentially be starting a production line from scratch. Want to place bets on what has survived from a production line closed for 50+ years? That is a huge part of why, the small numbers that would be made are hardly enough to qualify it as serial production and to build a production line for the frame and update the design with modern avionics engines and systems would make things prohibitively expensive on a per airframe basis. It would essentially be a frame up redesign as well (though it would get the proposed re engining done also would we or wouldn't we include the rear target so it could be multi-role and play part time psuedo spector with a pair of turreted 20mm cannon?

Originally Posted by zraver

I don't think the F-15 will be providing avionics support to the F-22 or F-35. The area able to host the radar suite might be bigger in the Eagle, but the Raptor can get much closer without being detected in turn. If anything the Eagle would likely being doing missile truck duty. The F-22's would hunt other 5th gen fighters and provide info for the Eagles to hunt the enemies legacy fighters.

Where the US faces challenges is in AWACS, our once impressive lead is now a slight tailing. A large very sophisticated and powerful airborne AESA with a very powerful FLIR mated to it is needed eventually.

With the current financial woes in government and the political climate against armed conflict where do you think the budget for a non-sexy new platform like upgraded c3 aircraft will come from? We need new Rivet Joint type aircraft as well.

Originally Posted by Maxor

The tooling and production line has been shut down since the 60's, It was conceivable to me a couple of years ago that the production line for F-15's in japan shut down in the mid-90's might be available for use, This was promptly shit down by Boeing people as that line has been closed for years almost a decade next to nothing survives from it you would essentially be starting a production line from scratch. Want to place bets on what has survived from a production line closed for 50+ years? That is a huge part of why, the small numbers that would be made are hardly enough to qualify it as serial production and to build a production line for the frame and update the design with modern avionics engines and systems would make things prohibitively expensive on a per airframe basis. It would essentially be a frame up redesign as well (though it would get the proposed re engining done also would we or wouldn't we include the rear target so it could be multi-role and play part time psuedo spector with a pair of turreted 20mm cannon?

Would it be more expensive than designing a new one from scratch?