Aircraft/Spacecraft/Aviation Thread

If you missed the news of the Boeing F-15X offer to the air force, it doesn't really matter, since USAF probably won't buy it anyway.

But it is an interesting plane and possibility. Here's the deal:
The air force is kinda pinched between old planes becoming too old and new planes being too unavailable and too unsuitable for the role.
The F-22 was intended to replace the F-15C in the air defence and air superiority role. Unfortunately, Obama cut the program very short.
It may have seemed like a reasonable budget saving for Obama, but it leads to a tremendous loss of value - the cost per plane goes through the roof -, and leads to big problems further down the road. Both in terms of maintenance and upgrades, because the production line is removed, and because there is suddenly no replacements for too old planes, F-15C, when they finally have to be retired.

Boeing have kept the F-15 production going, and kept developing the F-15. They have sold very advanced version to other nations. Twice before they have tempted the air force. So now we come to the F-15X Super Eagle.
Just like the F/A-18E/F/G Super Hornet, it has a radically reduced radar cross section, even if it's not quite defined as "stealth".
It has about half the operational cost per hour, compared to the F-15C or F-35A. It will surely get a much higher availability. It has much improved flying qualities due to fly by wire, more powerful engines, greater range, greater load. State of the art, massively improved radar, cockpit and weapon systems. And it's much stronger, designed for more than four times the operational lifespan of the F-15C.
Research, advanced combat simulations, war games, have indicated that number of air-air missiles will be an important factor in modern air combat and air combat tactics. So Boeing has made the F-15X able to carry 22 air-to-air missiles.

In every way, it seems it fits right in to plug a hole in the air force, providing good, cheap service all the way to 2060 something.
So why won't USAF buy it?
- Well, it would spend money that the air force wants for other planes. Thus it threatens other plans.
Mainly, in the short term, the F-35A. You have to remember that if the number of procured F-35s drops, the cost will go up. Further, there will then also be less resources available for fixing and upgrading the F-35. So it could drastically downgrade the F-35 program in two ways.
The other is a fighter that doesn't exist yet, and won't for a considerable time. They want to field an air superiority fighter that is much more advanced than the F-15X or F-22A. I don't believe the money will ever be available for that, but that doesn't stop generals and colonels from hoping, so the future will be 'interesting'.
In the end, my prediction is that a special and rather unsuitable air-defense variant of the F-35 will have to be pressed into service, sometime about at the decade shift 2030.



This sort of video, that I post here, is typically made by some Asian kid, feeding the text of some defense trade journal directly into some synthetic voice machine, and then illustrating it with various video clips they've stolen from YouTube.
I picked this, this time, because it's actually reasonably good for once. The clips are at least somewhat related to F-15X, showing off the kinds of developments the F-15X would feature, instead of some random video of Israeli air base operations or F-15Es air refuling.
...So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's not just some Asian kid?



Edit:  Update:
Sorry bout the loss of the video. Not going to do anything about that now.

Meanwhile, the F-15X project seem to have gotten considerably more likely. There's still lots of Air Force opposition from the very strong F-35 crowd, but the bean counters have done their part. It now seems the F-15X is going to be the cheapest solution to a mounting problem for the Air Force.

The problem is of course Air Defense. Due to the cut-off of the F-22 program by that great traitor Obama, and due to the F-35 program eating up the budget, air defense is crumbling. The air force MUST either refurbish and modernize old F-15Cs for a lot of money, without them becoming particularly good and still costing a lot of money to operate, or, somehow, upgrade some also very old F-16s to a level where they can credibly shoulder the F-15C's role, while scrapping the F-15Cs. Neither solution is particularly attractive or permanent. ...Or yet another version of the F-35 is needed. While some would want that, it's a horrible solution. It's costly in every way. It's farther away in the future, which means more money wasted trying to keep the old F-15Cs flying. It's more costly development work. The F-35 has almost as high operating costs as the F-15C, roughly twice the F-15X. And while stealth is nice, the F-35 airframe and flight envelope is rather poorly suited for the role.
The F-15X is arguably the most powerful solution. Accumulating costs will make the F-15X, 10 years from now, also the cheapest solution.
We'll see what happens. It could be settled before March.