The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an American jet fighter with twin engines and is designed for all weather tactical mission availability. The aircraft was designed by US Air Force to gain and maintain the air supremacy in all the aspects related to the aerial combat.
This aircraft is amongst the most successful air fighters in the world with over 100 victories during aerial combat missions. It has never suffered any loss in aerial combat missions. The majority of this aircraft’s kills are carried out by the Israeli Air Force.
The aircraft after its series production has been delivered to countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. The aircraft was initially designed for purely air superiority purposes but its later designs allowed it to have the secondary ground-attack capability as well. The more improved and advanced design of the F-15 Eagle entered in US Air Force service back in 1989 and since then has also been exported to many other countries as well.
Since 2017, this aircraft has been under the production for various design variants ad the development of these variants is likely to end by 2022.
For our readers today we have gathered a bunch of amazing facts about the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle aircraft. Without any further wait read these amazing facts down below.
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle made its first official flight 43 years ago, back on July 27th, 1972.
The development project was fueled by the development of MiG-25 Foxbat:-
In the late 1960s, US intelligence bureau found out about the development of the Russian MiG-25 Foxbat, an aircraft with large wings and dual engines. This caused the emergency meetings to be held at the US Congress.
The USAF feared this aircraft to be a highly maneuverable fighter jet that will likely outclass all the other American fighter jets. Although it was not the case, still this led to the development of F-15 Eagle.
Fighter Mafia: the team behind F-15’s design:-
The designing and development of this aircraft were made possible by a controversial group called “Fighter Mafia” in the US. This group consisted of US Air Force Officers and civilian analysts. In the 1970s, this group made use of the “Energy Maneuverability Theory” as a sole driver behind the design of the F-15.
The resulting aircraft was a combination of both high maneuverability and the high-tech electronic system and missiles.
Perfect Combat record:-
The aircraft since after entering into service has been deployed for more than 100 aerial combat missions. The aircraft due to its superior maneuverability has the perfect record of completing all 100 plus aerial combat mission with zero losses. No other aircraft in the world has this perfect aerial combat record other than McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle.
Does not have exhaust petals:-
This is one of the few fighter jets in the world, which is not equipped with Exhaust Petals on the engine. This was not actually the case because the earlier models had these exhaust petal but they kept falling off. So engineers made modifications and these exhaust petals were simply removed. This gives the aircraft a drag penalty of 3%.
Due to the aircraft’s nose being larger in size when compared to other aircraft of its class, it allows the aircraft to house a more powerful radar. The USAF F-15E are equipped with the radar APG-70 while the other variant of this aircraft like F-15I and F-15S are equipped with APG-70 but they have three times less capability than the USAF F-15s. These F-15I and F-15S are exported to other countries.
These foreign F-15 models have lower resolution performance of DBS (Doppler Beam Sharpening), Mapping and SAR (Synthetic Aperture Ratio) modes.
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is equipped with two of the Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-229 engines. Both of these engines are able to produce a combined thrust of about 58000 pounds.
Nicknamed ‘Strike Eagle’:-
McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle has been nicknamed as “Streak Eagle” as it has broken eight of the “Time to Climb” world records in-between period of January 16th to February 1st back in 1975.
In its performance of setting these eight records, F-15 Eagle climbed to an altitude of about 98425 feet in a mere 3 minutes and 27.8 seconds time from brake release at take-off. It also coasted to nearly 103000 feet before making its descent.
An F-15D of the Israeli Air Force had its right wing sheared off during a mid air collision. The aircraft was flown by a pilot named Ziv Nedivi who still miraculously managed to land the aircraft due to its superior aerodynamic characteristics.
The aircraft in this dangerous landing was landed at twice its normal speed for maintaining the necessary lift. Due to the massive increase in speed, its tail hook was completely torn off.
First Jet to shoot down an actual satellite:-
Back on September 13th, 1985, McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle became the first ever fighter jet to have successfully shot down a satellite. That particular F-15 took off from Edwards Air Force Base and climbed to an altitude of about 38100 feet vertically. After reaching that height, aircraft shot an anti-satellite missile targeted towards the “Solwind P78-1” which was a US Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy satellite traveling the orbit at a speed of about 345 miles launched back in 1979.
One F-15 aircraft fired a missile at another F-15:-
Back on March 9th, 1990 an F-15 Eagle belonging to the 3rd Wing stationed at the Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska accidentally fired a missile towards another F-15. The damaged F-15 was still able to make an emergency landing upon which it was repaired and entered back into the service.
The F-15 Eagle can be armed with a combination of the following different air-to-air weapons.
- AIM-7F/M Sparrow missiles or AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles on its lower fuselage corners
- AIM-9L/M Sidewinder or AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles on two pylons under the wings
- an internal M61 Vulcan 20 millimeter (0.79 in) Gatling gun in the right wing root
End of Production Line and expected service time:-
The production line for this aircraft is set to end in 2019, which is approximately 47 years since its first flight.
While its production line ends in 2019, the aircraft is expected to remain in the USAF service until and might over 2025.