Well, well...

Reader Blacktail had wrote sometime in 2011 in regard to F-35 predictions.

"10- The USAF brass will try to replace the F-15E Strike Eagle with more F-35As, as an excuse to siphon more funding to their future sugar daddies in Lockheed."

The idea that the F-35 could replace the F-15E is of course silly.

Yet, not long after the Blacktail prediction, some in the model airplane glue-sniffing club claim it is possible:

It is not surprising that the USAF does not have a plan in place to replace the F-15E, says Mark Gunzinger, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "They have a lot of things to address right now, for example, funding in this pretty ugly budget environment for their three top priorities, which remain the [Lockheed Martin] F-35, [Boeing KC-46] tanker, and the [Long Range Strike] bomber."

The most obvious candidate to replace the F-15E is a variant of the F-35, Gunzinger says. There is no money to develop a clean sheet design. "I do think they'll do some kind of an F-35E or whatever kind of F-35 variant," he says.

Missing in that article is that F-15Es were designed for 13,000 to 15,000 flight hours, right off the show-room floor.

Let us look at the F-15E a bit closer.

Here is only one example.


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