F-15 Eagle - американская хищная птица

Video from the channel SkyShips about McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 25:21. Video type: Documentary.

Educational documentary in Russian reviewing the history of the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, from the programs that preceded it to its most recent versions. The narrator warns that it barely touches on its combat record or direct comparisons with other fighters. At the start it includes a sponsored segment unrelated to the aircraft.

The story begins with the TFX program, whose F-111 flew in 1964 without convincing either the Air Force or the Navy; the Navy ended up developing the F-14. In 1965 the Air Force launched its own F-X program for an air-superiority fighter. The experience of Vietnam, where close-range dogfights prevailed over long-range engagements, lowered the required speed from Mach 3 to Mach 2.5 and raised the thrust-to-weight ratio from 0.75 to 1. The appearance of the MiG-25 at a parade near Moscow in 1967 reopened the debate, and in 1968 the decision was made in favor of a pure air-superiority fighter. Among the proposals from Fairchild Republic, North American Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas, the Air Force chose McDonnell Douglas's, which was more conventional and lower technical risk.

The F-15 has a high-mounted trapezoidal wing, twin tail fins, and two Pratt & Whitney F100 afterburning turbofans, and its structure is around 26-27% titanium. The video mentions the Hughes AN/APG-63 radar, the AIM-9, AIM-7 and AIM-120 missiles, the 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannon, and the 11 hardpoints. The F-15A flew in July 1972 and the two-seat version in July 1973. Deliveries began in autumn 1974 and operational status was reached in 1976. Israel was the first foreign user and the first to take it into combat. Japan signed an agreement in 1978 for local assembly at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Saudi Arabia received more than 60 F-15Cs. The video also reviews the C/D versions, with almost 31 tonnes maximum weight and conformal fuel tanks; the F-15E Strike Eagle; the naval F-15N, which was not adopted; the S/MTD demonstrator with thrust-vectoring nozzles; and the ASM-135 anti-satellite missile launches between 1984 and 1986, in which a satellite in low orbit was destroyed. About 1,200 units were built. According to the narrator, the A/B models were retired in 2009 and replaced by the F-22.