I have always thought the F-15 is a bad ass fighter but I watched a documentary on the F-15 and was blown away. Seeing it on TV makes me wonder is it is exaggerated. This is what they say. True? Would love your first hand opinion.

They have a radar so powerful they can pickup aircraft well beyond visual range and in many cases tell the pilot what model aircraft it is.

The first aircraft to shoot down satellites.

The MIG-25 was a big reason the F -15 was created.

They say it has not been shot down . Ever.

17 seconds after takeoff it is supersonic, 3 minutes later it is flying at 98,000 feet.

It is still in production.

It has the best power to weight. Still better than the F-22.

It is 10 times less money than an F-22

It seems that the F-15 is chosen over F-22 most of the time. They didn't say that that is my take on it.

Max rate of climb: 50,000. feet per minute...

Here are my opinionated (and biased) answers to your questions:

They have a radar so powerful they can pickup aircraft well beyond visual range and in many cases tell the pilot what model aircraft it is.
Yes, this is true.

The first aircraft to shoot down satellites.
Yes, this was true - but only once (Sep 85). During the Reagan years, the Anti-Satellite (ASAT) program was started to enable such an operational capability, but was later scrapped as technical problems and costs increased.

The MIG-25 was a big reason the F -15 was created.
False. The Mig-25 (Foxbat) was designed primarily to shoot down the B-70 Valkyrie bomber.

They say it has not been shot down . Ever.
Maybe true, not sure.

17 seconds after takeoff it is supersonic, 3 minutes later it is flying at 98,000 feet.
Is true, but only for rare (non-operational) cases. These numbers are probably from the Streak Eagle program - Winter 1975 at Grand Forks AFB, ND. This test was done as a public relations/marketing event to show the capabilities of the F-15. Was done at sub-zero temperatures and at ultra-light weights using a Rutowski climb profile. All of which did not represent operational parameters.

It is still in production.
True. Still in production, but planned to end in 2019.

It has the best power to weight. Still better than the F-22.
The F-15's published thrust/weight ratio is 1.07 whereas that of the F-22 is 1.08. Really pretty meaningless since this doesn't reflect the operational weight due to armament nor does it include the aircrafts' significantly different drag coefficients. Finally, thrut/weight ratio is a minor player these days whereas weaponry, defensive avionics/stealth, and ICC (integrated command/control) play much more significant roles than pure performance.

It is 10 times less money than an F-22
Meaningless statement considering the "cost" of military planes are usually frozen at the year of the first buy lot and thus don't reflect the rate of inflation for future years. Furthermore, the published cost per plane usually includes all the fixed sunk costs of design and development, not the actual variable cost of production. Furthermore, these numbers can be skewed when training costs and spare parts costs are attached to the price. Basically though, acquisition costs of new aircraft exponentially increases.

It seems that the F-15 is chosen over F-22 most of the time. They didn't say that that is my take on it. The F-15 was phenomenal plane in its time. It clearly outshone its predecessor, the F-4, in every category - handling qualities, performance, systems, etc. The F-22, however, is even more capable (so I'm told), but obviously much more expensive.

Doug

I concur with all of Doug's answers. I flew the A model F-15 in the 1980s. It was lighter than the current C models but had less thrust so performance was similar. The radar, avionics and weapons are an order of magnitude better now than what we had in the 1980s. The real bad-asses are the AIM-120 AND the AIM-9X.

Could you be reading this backwards? It is correct the F-15 was a counter to the MiG-25.

No?

Additionally, I thought the Foxbat was designed to shoot down B-70 Valkyries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_A ... 0_Valkyrie

(It's been a while since I studied this stuff.)

Well, intelligently-answered, Doug.

Could you be reading this backwards? It is correct the F-15 was a counter to the MiG-25.

No?

Additionally, I thought the Foxbat was designed to shoot down B-70 Valkyries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_A ... 0_Valkyrie

(It's been a while since I studied this stuff.)

The F-15 was designed to replace the multi-role fighters (specifically the F-4) we had been using for air-to-air with a single mission, air-to-air aircraft. We finally relearned that the air-to-air arena is no place for a jack of all trades, master of none aircraft. There were several Soviet aircraft entering service or in development plus thousands of MiG-21s in service that needed to be dealt with. The MiG-23 was the chief worry in the 1970s, with estimated performance numbers that rivaled the F-15. Those numbers turned out to be grossly over-estimated but the Flogger, the Fished plus whatever other tactical fighters the Soviets might have on the drawing board were the main justification for the F-15.

Dangit, Doug!

I had not heard of the Rutowski climb profile

A web search turned up this. Now I need pain killers for the math-induced headache it caused.

http://www.aviation.org.uk/docs/flightt ... 108/c7.pdf

Doug covered most of it.

Us vs the 22 is not very clear cut. There are tons of things that the 22 can do better. There are several things we can do better. When we integrate Eagles and Raptors we do EVERYTHING better. We didn't buy enough Raptors to fully replace what we had with the 750+ Eagles back in the day so we are continuing to stretch the Eagle lifespan to cover the gap until we figure something else out. (hint, it won't be the F35).

True they are still producing F-15's, but they are only producing 2 seat F-15SA's for the Saudi's, F-15SE's for the Sings and maybe a few F-15K's for the Koreans but I'm not sure if that buy is over. They are not producing single seat jets - haven't since 1986 when we got our last one. The USAF hasn't bought a strike eagle in about 10 years either, it's just for foreign guys.

Are the one being built today any better then 30 years ago? One more thing they said, is that in 2007 when the cockpit of one broke of it was caused by excessive G loading. I would think the ones built today would have some structural changes to prevent that.

The one that broke apart was not from excessive G loading. It was from a manufacturing error - the longerons were machined to be thinner than the spec. No one notice for all these years because it had never been an issue. We found an additional 9 jets in the fleet that had thin longerons. They were all retired immediately.

The ones being built today are different than the ones built 30 years ago. For one thing they are all two seat air to ground models which didn't start being built till '86. They have a bigger gear to handle the additional weight. Obviously the avionics, radar, defensive systems and engines are much different than the original versions. The basic aircraft structure FWIU is nearly the same. (incidentally none of the 2 seat versions had the longeron problems, it was only a small set of the single seat jets that had them).

Regarding the time to climb, I understand the numbers I wrote was an extreme case that is not real world. What is time to climb all in full fuel and full weapons.

Well, every jet is a little different. How high are you talking about climbing? How hot is it outside, what is the density altitude?

Either way though, I don't have a firm answer becaue it depends. If I did have a firm answer I probably wouldn't post it on the internet. Sorry.

Lets just say it's fast, real fast.

Tom,

That link looks very similar (if not identical) to a chapter in our texbook at the Test Pilot School. BTW, that was one of the easier courses. With regards to the Rutkowski climb profile, we had to fly one at TPS to collect data on our project aircraft (F-4). That was also the approximate profile used operationally in the F-15 when setting up to shoot an AIM-7 at a 'high/fast flyer' such as the Mig-25.

Doug