First flight27 July 1972

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USAF Serial: 71-280
McDonnell Douglas F-15A-1-MC Eagle
First flight: July 27, 1972

Objectives: Open the flight envelope, explore handling qualities, check out external stores carriage.

As much as I like the F-15, and the F-16 as well,  I personally am not entirely comfortable with the idea of a fighter that

has been operational (in any sense) for 30, even 40 years.  



Or even 20 years, for that matter.





Back in the 50s and 60s, during the major developmental period of the jet engine and supersonic aircraft,

it seemed that we had a new fighter design coming out every month or so.    Clearly there's no need for that

kind of thing to happen these days,  but I think a new fighter every 30 years or so is a bit TOO slow of a replacement program.





That's a lot of years for an enemy to come up with something better.





But it all comes down to two things:  Politics and money.





CJ

There really hasn't been any major technological leaps in aviation in the last 40 years.  We now have low observable technology but that's still a relatively young technology. We have better electronics and computers but that is something which is continually evolving so you can't design a new aircraft around that. We have more efficient engines but that too is always changing and engines can be fitted to older designs.

I guess that the question you have to ask about any new design is " What does this plane do that the current one cannot?" And " Is it enough of an improvement to warrant replacing the current design?"