I think the F-15EX is a good idea. That platform's been around for decades. Even though it's still a 4th gen fighter, it's as modern a 4th gen fighter that you can get, and the operating costs per hour are well below the F-35. Two new weapons stations, glass cockpit, fly by wire, new EW suite... It'll be a 15 driver's dream.
I think its terrific. I think the technology in the F-35 is overkill.
I thought only the Marine Corps version had vertical takeoff. Now I need to look it up.
Marines have the B & C variants. B is short takeoff/vertical landing, C is the carrier variant for catapult launches & arrested landings.
They are really heavy and thusly slow based on other versions.
I got treated much better in the army than the air farce, I got sick of being an E4 that was one of 4 people Hot pit, EOR and ICT qualified..so 12 hour shifts while the chief came in at 8 and left at 3, while I had to be there at 3 am so I could clean the floor before he came it. He felt too inconvenienced to have to walk down the steps to get to the other end of the hangar and go back up...lazy fucker, mean while we were changing engines so a pilot could get 2 more hours on an airframe before it went into phase, so 4 hours of engine changes for 2 hours of flight before it became a pumpkin. Tim
I helped close Sacramento alc and move part of the workload to hill, they had about 20 getting rebuilt there. And 15 years old in 1992, they are 40 years old now 78 model f-15c
Eh, they're only heavier by a tad. All the pilots I've spoken to that have quals on both versions say they handle nearly identically. The biggest deficit is their range due to the lift fan taking up fuel tank space.
