The Insane Super Fighter That Was Too Weird for the Air Force
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- čas přidán 28. 12. 2022
- The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is one of America's most prominent air superiority fighters, credited with over 100 air victories without suffering a single loss to this day. First flown in 1972, it is still currently in service with the United States, Israel, Japan, and Saudi Arabia.
Even before the first batch of F-15s rolled off the assembly line, the US Air Force and NASA began experimenting with the fighter. In 1984, an F-15 was highly modified with short take-off and landing capabilities, reducing the aircraft's required runway landing length by an impressive 80 percent.
Years later, specialized canards developed by NASA drastically improved the aircraft's stability at supersonic speeds and even implemented Artificial Intelligence for emergency protocols.
The result was the most modified F-15 ever built, with state-of-the-art components and systems that made it a more effective air superiority fighter that even helped test and discover new technology. It would also go down in history as the ‘Frankenstein aircraft’...
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I was an original team member on the F-15 STOL/MTD program in St. Louis, MDC and at Edwards AFB. Sentimental to watch the video. Obviously, the older "B" model was heavily modified with the F-18 Horizontal Stabs for the canards, an additional F-16 hydraulic reservoir (needed more pressure/flow to power the canards), fly-by-wire, upper wing skins were aluminum, one of kind landing gear struts (Cleveland Pneumatic), modified arresting gear (square engine nozzles took up too much space), a considerable amount of flight test equipment - acoustical microphones, strain gauges, etc. A couple of early testing stories - we took the aircraft to the old original Edwards south runway (had been completely abandon) and installed metal ramps that were as wide as the gear's wheel base and nearly 40ft long (estimating). The steel ramps started around 1/2" thick and go as high as 6 to 8 inches and back down to 1/2". One of the testing requirements was to simulate take-off/landing on an unimproved or damaged runways. With four or five ramps lined up, we taxied the aircraft down the runway going over the ramps at various ground speeds. The slowest speed was the most visibly scary with the nose gear coming completely off the ground vs 100kts.....unfortunately, we discovered after the testing the left main strut cracked in half near the trunnion. Another test we conducted during a moon-less night, painted a box on the main Edwards runway several days prior to the test, it's dimensions escape me now, but the test required the aircraft to land and take-off in the box with zero visibility - we had a LATIRN pod on the aircraft. Some may not know this - the engine nozzles were 2D vectoring, but also had a crude reversing (lateral hinged slots on the upper and lower nozzles) capability. The pilots throttle assembly or PLA would travel past the idle position to enable the reserving control. The test results were very successful. As others have stated below, what a wonderful era in our aerospace development; F-15E, F-15 STOL/MTD, F-15 ASAT, ATF (Y-22/YF-23), NGC F-20 Tigershark, Space Shuttle, many F-16 development programs, C-17, B-1B, and B-2 testing.
Thank you for sharing!
I was working in the flying qualities simulator lab at EAFB during the program. We had fun competing in the simulator to see who could land in the shortest distance.
So freaking interesting! Thank you so much for sharing!!!!
I think the F-15 STOL/MTD is the coolest plane ever and your sharing this is valuable. Thank you dude. You're awesome
So, what designation is Y? I basically assumed C means Cargo but I have no clue to what to assume Y means... A,B, and F are all rather standard, and found it hilarious while learning about this they actually categorized a bomber as a fighter just to get the best pilots to fly it because of some (mostly justified) "better than thou" thinking among fighter pilots. Not really sure why though, does the nighthawk pull extreme G maneuvers? I can only assume this was during R&D before it was self stabilizing and had fire and forget laser guided munitions...
The F-15 is what you get when you sincerely believe the enemy has a super-plane, i.e. the MiG-25, and you unleash expert engineers to beat it. What a beautiful, capable monster the Eagle has turned out to be for decades.
…and come to find out the Mig25 is crap and over rated.
@@JT-ee1ii
Glad you said it! The Foxbat was the result of allowing the Soviets to infiltrate the Avro Arrow program in Canada, then canceling it before Canada wound up with a useless generation one POS, but the Soviets copied it anyway! Biggest prank of the Cold War.
@@JT-ee1ii but very fast crap, mach 2.8 all the way to the scrap yard.
The MiG-25 would be a superplane if it weren't made of stainless steel
Direct your thanks to Mr. Pierre Sprey, John Boyd and Thomas Christie for developing E-M theory and massively guiding the design of the f15 and f16. Sadly the US has forgotten all about this, and has become reliant on overweight, over budget, nonfunctional turkeys like the f35, that are reliant on fantasy technology like stealth
I have to say that overall the F15 is one of the finest post-WW2 fighters. Plenty of them and has dominated the air for some time. I'm sure it's still very adaptable even now
But gen 4….like it or don’t, stealth is the future…F-15 40yo design.
@@Blovi-qd4lh Most countries nowadays can't even afford a full fleet of stealth fighters. Let alone even make a decent one. There's a decent fleet of F22s and F35s. Russia only has like 6 actually usable Su57s. China had to steal F22 and F35 plans to make the J20. Yeah they maybe the future... but that future isn't for a long long long time from now 4th Gen is here to stay.
@@Blovi-qd4lh you're Right, but actually you're wrong. Yeah, I'm aware how retarded that sounds, but an air war of today the gen 4 F15 is the Anchor of American power.
If/when we find the need to wipe out an enemies eyes an ears you are 100% correct that is where our stealth planes and drones come in protected by stealth fighters like the F22. Once said threats are neutralized our all mighty F15 comes in as a pure bred work horse with enormous balls and an even bigger c0ck to match, literally d1ck whipping all-any-every target into non existence......
So again, you're Right, but you're actually more Wrong.
🇺🇸👍 May God bless America 🇺🇸👍
@@Blovi-qd4lh stealth is the present
@@Blovi-qd4lh 'stealth' is overrated
I was an Airframe mechanic in the AF during the mid 80s and worked on the Strike Eagles at Kadena Air Base. These were truly amazing machines! I always wondered which was better, the Eagle or the Super Hornet
The F-15 is a tank in the sky, commanding everything it sees. The F-18 isa sharp and precise fighter.
What was better the F-14 Tomcat or the F-15 Strike Eagle
@@donnyokeefe3098 - Clearly, the F-15, as it is still being built and still in the air defending our nation and the nations of many others.
Further range, 1200 miles vs.
@@tommissouri4871 boo-boo. I love the Tom cat. They named it after Tom Cruise. (Fact). Also, the f14 had substantially longer range than 600 miles in all applications. No idea where anyone gets
@@agnosticmoron6711 - Combat range.
F-14 -- Range 1800 miles,
combat range 580 miles,
t-o & l wingspread 64 feet,
take-off roll - 2500 feet.
F-15 -- Range 3500 miles,
combat range 1200 miles,
t-o & l wingspread 42 feet,
take-off roll - 900 feet.
So Maverick's take off from a taxiway in that movie was impossible.
The F-15… One of the only aircraft that can lose a wing and still fly and land.
Big facts. What wing loss? It’s just cloaked.
I seem to recall the same thing happening to the A10 as well.
Solo wing landing
@@dlm9477 i highly doubt that is possible for a straight wing aircraft. f15 could do the trick because fuselage provides big chunk of the lifting force.
@@drzerg2 nope, it actually happened to a P 47 during WW2 but the A10 story is a bit hard to confirm but I heard it happened during the first Iraq war.
the F-15 is such a sweet bird, watching them do unrestricted take offs is a real sight to watch, just unbelievably powerful
Was born and raised off and on during the 90s on Scott afb. Oh what a thrill it is to see a bunch of them go full scramble launch it shakes your bones.
God bless america, superb war planes but no health care.
See the footage of the F-15A "Streak Eagle" time to climb records.
I saw this once. I could hardly believe what I was seeing. It looked like something out of a science fiction movie.
@@NoahSpurrier - Being in the factory was like a scene out of Star Wars and the X-wing fighters. Incredible birds.
Your vids are great man. You somehow get the most important information compressed in a good video lenght, without loss of quality. It's always fun to watch them
When an F-15 can have an entire wing shot off and still make it back to base and land safely that's one bad ass plane !
Ripped off from a mid air collision, not shot off.
@@tommissouri4871 Still bad-ass 😎😎
@@tommissouri4871 was the mid-air collision with a friendly fighter plane or enemy plane? or something else?
@@atlastanker - It was an Israeli fighter in a training flight, and they collided with their target aircraft, IIRC. Anyway, it was a friendly flight. The other plane went down. There was so much vapor of liquids streaming out, the pilot couldn't see the wing was missing. There are several videos on CZcams that are worth watching. Just search Israeli F-15 lands with one wing.
@@Mightymoose02 - Even more so. Shot off would mean the wing was cut off. Midair collision means the whole aircraft took a huge impact.
IFCS was inspired by the Sioux city airliner crash of 1989, the airliner suffered a disintegration of it's tail engine compressor disk that destroyed all three of the aircraft's hydraulic flight control systems. The pilots navigated the aircraft through turns and altitude changes with just engine thrust from the wing engines, that got engineers thinking.
I remember hearing about that one. If i recall correctly, those guys did all that on intuition, and dumb luck. There was no procedure for such an incident, they just had to figure it out as they went. Truly amazing work.
Ya, I worked on the STOL/MTD back in the day. This was NOT the most modified F-15 we had at the time, but it was the most externally obvious modifications. Don't get me wrong, it was highly modified and had parts from the A model through the E model in it, but some of the other F-15's were running more instrumentation and custom wiring.
Oh that’s cool, what part of the project were you on? This video title’s sorta misleading, but regardless the S/MTD project is visually iconic and a real cool one among them all. Not the most internally extreme, just slick
@@yeetyateyote5570 I was an avionics technician, so I worked on all the test F-15's there at the time late 89-93, I left in early 1994 to go write post-flight data analysis software for the B-2 CTF.
Did you guys really took F-18 horizontal tail surfaces for the canards ?? Is it common to rip off parts of some planes and use them for other aircrafts ? This seems so odd
@@eSDK67 yes, they took the rear stabilators off an F-18 and slapped them right up there. I was really wild to see on take-off, the plane would be straight and level but climbing like it was on an elevator with the front and rear stabilators providing lift.
I also worked on STOL/MTD in the F/A-18 Flight Controls group - on the Fiber Optic anti-lock brakes at McDonnell Aircraft in St Louis.
More than just the canards (Hornet Tails) the entire Fly by wire flight controls system including hydraulic rams and LVDTs was modified from the F/A-18 D made by GE and fitted into an old F-15B. It was one of the 5 ATF proposals, but it was an evolutionary design and didn't have enough revolutionary technology to be down selected in 1986 for the 2 aircraft fly off of the Lockheed YF-22 and the Northrop YF-23. Non-STOL versions of the F-15 and F/A-18 are still in production while the F-22 production stopped in 2011. Last time I was out at Edwards in 2018 I saw the STOL/MTD aircraft on static display at the NASA Dryden museum, near Edwards AFB north gate.
I remember being an Airman at Holloman AFB in NM. They brought this plane out to the test cell to run it in the sound suppressor. The civilians dropped it off and ask us to get it ready to run while they went and got lunch. We backed it into the suppressor, and then I got in the cockpit to get things ready, and I couldn't do anything, almost the entire cockpit was different, and there was no checklist for it. LOL
Dude, I was at Holloman from "86 to '89. I was avionics with the 8th AMU. When were you there?
I was at Holloman from '85 to '89. When where you there?
I was there from '77 to '80 with the spanking brand new F-15A's. Previously, I was an avionics tech for the F-111A/F, and the F-15A was like stepping into the future.
@@Bdub1952 I'll bet. I worked B-shop on the F-15A and B models with the 8th. I married late and have kids that are 7 and 11 years old now and think it's pretty cool that if they ever choose to go into the military they could be working on the F-15 EX. I used to love morning launch. There was just something haunting about the noise of a dozen JFS's screaming away and echoing off the buildings lining the ramp.
@@tonygryboski8593 I was there for 87 to 89, worked Jet Shop and then Test Cell. As an Airman, I was basically just a ground guy, and I was tasked with the boring stuff, LOL
Can I be the first to appreciate the editing in the cold-open with the cuts synced to the beat? Well done.
I was lucky enough to attend the last Edwards Airshow years ago when the ACTIV F15 was flown at the show. I managed to get some good photos of it including a taxi pass near the crowd.
It ended up in a few video games due to it's unique look. Ace Combat 4 comes to mind, as well as the HAWX series (where controlled flight departure was a feature of the game that kinda fit the vibe)
Ace Combat 4, 5, Zero, 6, 7 and Infinity
Also Project Wingman, but under a different name
@@aaronsanborn4291 fictional variants based on it also appeared in AC2 and AC3
Ah i see a comment full of Aces! >
@@crayondevourer2267 I see you are a man of culture as well
Good video. I worked on 4 models of F-15s and remember the NASA jets coming to visit us occasionally while we were doing our own program as well, ours ended up becoming the E models though, technically, I never worked on the E since they were still D's. But yeah, those NASA jets were amazing. And I'd have to dispute that a normal F-15 couldn't do STOL. We'd see ours go full burners, release brakes and within a few seconds it was off the ground. And watching it climb out of site straight up was awe inspiring. Nothing the Russians had could touch our A's and B's, and then the C's and D's were a whole other level of performance above that. Seeing what I'm seeing in Ukraine, I really wish Reagan would have turned us loose on the Warsaw Pact. That conflict would have ended in days.
...and you would have been home on christmas? I think, I heard this quite a few times
With the new F-15 EX this amazing plane will continue to fly well into the 21st century.
aka the 5EX Eagle...
Incroyable.
Pardon my nitpicking but I thought we were already well into the 21st century?
@@davidkelley5382 OK! Let me rephrase...With the new F-15 EX this amazing plane will continue to fly for decades to come.
@@davidkelley5382 🤓
The F-15 Eagle is the plane I had a poster of on my 8 year old chubby bum’s wall. Truly awesome. I experienced it’s sound and power in an air show as a kid. Loved it after that. Along with B-1 and F-18 are my favourites.
I never knew about this version! The classic F-15 is a great workhorse plane, this version would be amazing to see actually deployed
It was only a research aircraft, they had to remove the gun to fit the canards.
And with advanced controls and vectored trust the canards we're not needed.
The engineering was meant for testing purposes, not manufacturing and deployment purposes. You'd be a lot better off redesigning an entire aircraft around the technology since it's a radical departure from the intended design.
They should keep one flying to do major air shows...
2:30 - You missed the best part. The amount of thrust allows the F-15 to accelerate straight up. Not just climb, but to gain speed climbing. Another item not mentioned is this is 71290, built under the 1971 contract to build a series of prototype test aircraft during 1972 and first flew July 1973. It is near the last of the group, as 71291 was the last of those. It is one of the longest flying F-15s to exist.
I just read your post, after posting about it's being the only warplane that can pull against 90 degrees of the earth's gravitational pull, and still gain speed. I know of two that did it, one stretched and broke the airframe, and the second disintegrated in flight. There may have been more, but if memory serves me, that one that disintegrated was the last to do it, and they banned the maneuver afterward.
@@elmerfudpucker3204 So it can go straight up, but not accellerate while doing so?
The F-15 is such an incredible aircraft that the only thing that has ever brought down the F-15 was mechanical failure. There's also a video here on CZcams of an Israeli F-15 that was able to land with only one wing after it was sheared of during a training accident. Just an incredible plane indeed.
That incident is where literally everyone that plays DCS got the phrase "Ehh, just trim it out, you'll make it back" from regarding the F-15's ability to take extreme damage and keep going.
The A-10 was designed to do that from the start, the F-15 was not, and yet they're about equal on "how much damage can you take and still make it back to home plate"
A-10 uses armor and it's geometry for this purpose, F-15 uses the fact that basically it can fly in "missile with a man in it" mode if the wings break off because the inlets and fuselage can generate enough lift to keep it airborne significantly under the speed of sound, and the all-moving tailplanes were already blending roll commands into the equation, so you don't even really technically need the ailerons either.
Of course, you're gonna have to land faster than usual, but that's a fair sight better than going down in enemy territory.
@@44R0Ndin I love it when I can learn something from other people!! Thank you!👍😁
i remember when they were testing the exf-15. I'm sure it would've given raptor a true hardcore run for the money had they actually used it. I liked the design of the ex version thought it was cool as heck being it was out at the same time as the x-29 as well. I was a kid growing up on air force bases back then so always kept up with new planes and such.
The Isreali had an F15 which lost a wing in non combat operation...the pilot put it in afterburn and flit like a rocket. It landed safely...this was due to its excellent design and capabilities.
It was also immensely due to that pilot's skill.
"He was fighter pilot they called Solo Wing Pixy, this man was hid buddy" >
@@joeh4295 oops yep yur obsolutley right...thank you.
Most people don't realize how physically hard it is to pilot an aircraft that is so capable of extreme performance in all aspects of physics. It's very hard to just stay conscious in extreme maneuvers that these airplanes can perform.
I hope to see the F15 continue flying as a fighter well into the future like the B52 as a bomber for many years to come.
Thank you for the killer video Dark Skies🇺🇲💪
With that incredibly low takeoff speed, I bet this plane would’ve fit nicely into Sweden’s doctrine (taking off from roads and what not)
To put that in perspective: this fighter, weighing 47,000 lbs, has a take off speed (42 mph) just slightly higher than the stall speed of a J-3 Cub (38 mph), which weighs 1,220 pounds
Checked the references, looks like 42mph was the lowest velocity at rotation and not at lift off as the script suggests.
the front canards or whatever they're called come straight from the viggen
@@yonakatsu4878
That’s not even a little bit true. Many canards have been used since the Wright brothers. Yes the Viggin has them but no, they were not exclusive to that or the Draaken.
Haha, valid point. Almost!
Actually, the J3 cubs published stall speed in it's FAA approved owners manual, is absolutely false.
It comes from a bygone era, its actually the stall speed of the J2 or else the prototype or 1937 40hp J3 of 1000lb maximum wt. there were some of 1k, 1100, 1170, 1220 depending on mods. All share the same "stall speed" which is incorrect but nobody seems to correct it.
Proof:
USA-35b (and similar but "better" Clark Y) airfoils wind tunnel data shows a CLmax around 1.4-1.6, iffy old wind tunnels in the 1920s. Attaining a CLmax above 1.7 requires lots of aft camber or small flaps. Larger than 1.8 requires normal flaps.
38mph = 55.733...ft/s
Rho = 0.00237717
1/2(rho*v^2)
Dynamic Pressure (q) = 3.692 Lbs/Ft^2
Piper Cub:
1,220lb
Wing area (S) 178.5ft^2
=6.854 Psf wing loading.
Over 3.692 = CLmax of 1.856.
Not possible for that airfoil even if it was made to perfection in a controlled environment, it would be around CLmax 1.5.
But, in reality it is fabric covered with stitching, paint, etc. plus must also factor in the reduction of lift due to aspect ratio.
CLmax for the airplane will be around 1.35.
6.854/1.35 = 5.06 = Q
= 65.25 Fps = 44.5mph
FASTER than the F-15s stall speed.
Which corresponds to my personal experience flying an un-flapped J3 cub, two up, half tanks, at around 1220lbs. Its interesting to note that a 65hp cub cruises barely faster than its climb speed and only 1-2/3 its stall speed. Little or no margin for tomfoolery.
As a Brit I’ve always adored the F-15. I saw one at an air show in England (USAF Alconbury) and the pilot wrung its neck that day…breath taking display of skill and brutality.
I loved all the UK aircraft, and still do. Jaguar, Harrier, Tornado, and the Typhoon Eurofighter is sensational. We also have F35 for our carriers and ( I think) some F22s.
No F-22s are operational outside USAF.
@@winternow2242 thanks for clarifying. That’s why I said (I think) 👍🏼
The F-15 S/MTD is too pure for this world ~
The f-15, what a beautiful aircraft, personally my favorite.
Wait, it's 50 years old and still used today? Happy birthday F15.
This variant could have made a superb addition to carrier based operations, if the programme expanded to look at just that, but the f14 was already used for that role. Still, it would be a nice addition to times of a major war where every plane available would be called for combat. I'm sure there are a 100 experts on this channel who would detail the choices and feasibility of such a platform on carriers, I'm not here for that though.
I got to see this at the 50th anniversary of the Air Force at Nellis.
The awe and wonder my brother and I had, I'll never forget.
BTW… thanks for producing such a great, to-the-point video. Great work!
Like others have said, it wasn't too weird for the airforce, it was an experiment. The results were STOL and improved low speed maneuvering at the cost of increased weight, increased drag, decreased thrust to weight ratio, decreased acceleration, decreased speed, decreased range, increased cost & increased maintenance. US Airforce air superiority doctrine relies on using altitude, speed, situational awareness, & BVR tactics to put an adversary on the defensive before they get WVR. A defending aircraft loses energy (speed & altitude) dodging BVR shots. Each BVR shot can theoretically reduce an adversarie's energy state until it no longer has enough to escape and dies. If the adversary manages to survive to a merge they will enter a WVR fight at a severe disadvantage if they haven't recovered energy state in time. Speed, altitude, acceleration, thrust to weight & rate of climb are critical to controlling the fight, and recovering lost energy quickly if you happen to be put on the defensive. When you're out of energy in a fight you die no matter how maneuverable you are. The doctrine struggled in Vietnam due to technological immaturity, poor training, & engagement constraints, but has since been battle proven in Desert Storm 1 & Kosovo. Note that the Russians have ditched canards on the latest Flanker models. There seems to be a misconception that more maneuverable always = better chance at winning in a fight and that's simply not true. If it were, then every military would still be flying biplanes because they're the most maneuverable type of aircraft.
The big selling point for the experiment was ability to operate from short or damaged runways, and the Airforce must have decided to focus on defending the runways rather than trying to operate from them after they've been cratered.
Excellent explanations of modern engagement in the air.
Excellent points.
I would add radar cross section also suffers due to canards. So does missile range when fired from a slower, lower flying fighter. Higher and faster means more miles of effective weapon range in BVR.
It also looked like a chicken trying to glide.
Did price factor into this as well? Because at this time wasn't the development and deployment of the F22 finished?
The fiction writer Dale Brown's early work centered a lot around an upgraded F15 with canards and this was in the 80s - funny how that happens 😉
Actually Dale Brown's book came out after the plane already existed. Flight of the Cheetah was a great read though.
@@mpeugeot thats my point
Great episode. That was fascinating.
Thanks for the videos
You might want to mention somewhere that Dryden Flight Research Center is now Armstrong Flight Research Center, renamed in honor of the late Neil Armstrong. Otherwise, this video was concise, yet informative concerning the F-15 Active and other programs. Thank you.
I've always loved this Eagle!
@2:30 23,700 lbs of force is from each engine. So that's 46,000+ lbs thrust.
HenryDoily 22@gmoytfh
Best voiceover i ever encountered for military specs.
The ACTIVE prototype seems really good alternative to those F-35 though but you know gotta have some new tech
The only 2 gripes for the F-35 is its expensive, and took way to long to develope. However its very capable dont kid yourself
Countries like UK and Australia would love a long range, all weather air superiority fighter and as substitute for the F-22 Raptor. This could be combined with the Silent Eagle concept and built with modern materials and manufacturing technique.
This experimental aircraft was also the inspiration for the fictional "XF-15F Cheetah" featured in the 1989 technothriller novel _Day Of The Cheetah_ by Dale Brown.
Thank You for the reminder of a fine book I should re read
The F-15 Active was also featured in the game "Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2". sadly both HAWX and HAWX 2 are now "abandonware"
Man you really have some terrific content 💯
The S/MTD has got to be my favorite 4th gen fighter.
Something from a model airplane guy: those large canards just over the wing will speed up the airflow over the wing as well as combing the airflow so theres more lift. The supersonic flight may be compromised. The drag to lift coefficient must be interesting. Also study the shock walls at supersonic speeds, where on the main wing do they occur?
Placement placement and placement. How does the center of lift vs center of gravity work on STOL operations?
I have so many questions.
I used to work on F-15E models. It was cool to see the insides of the aircraft. One of the jets I worked on personally is at 8:25. Many times it would just be me alone with a jet and I would pretend to play pilot/WSO. it was grueling work but rewarding at times. If it wasn't for my body breaking down I would have made a career out of it.
It's cool, isn't it, to point out an aircraft that you actually were on. Not just one of the same type, but THE aircraft. Many don't understand that. I worked at Goodyear Aerospace for a short time, and my new boss was quick to point out they built the F-15 simulators. As we walked the hall, he was asking how much I had been around them. I pointed to a picture on the wall and said "I've been in that plane several times." He said so I had been in F-15Es? I said, "no, THAT plane. Of course, it was blue when I was in it. That is 71-291." He couldn't comprehend tail numbers.
@@tommissouri4871 I also spent time with 71-0291 B-2 as a Flight Test Engineer (Dept. 271) during the Strike Eagle program. Many exciting times and memories supporting that program and the men and women that dedicated so much time and energy to make it happen. I was lucky enough to get a ride in the back seat with Glen Larsen up front. An incredible experience.
Thank you for the great video!
I was an F 4 brat more specifically a wild weasel guy when I was in the service. We were very jealous of the F15 at that time
In the mid 1980s, I was aware of an "Expert System" (they didn't call it AI) program being run out of Lockheed-Georgia. I was working on the YF-22, and there was concern that the VERY complex combat scenarios for the F-22 (Fulda Gap, etc) would overload the pilots. So, they wanted to let the Expert System calculate flight paths that would put the aircraft into favorable positions for firing at the enemy aircraft. The flight path would then be displayed in the HUD as a ribbon the pilot could follow - or the computer could fly the path itself. The flight path would be continuously recalculated based on the sensor data on the enemy aircraft and it's own flight data, with the goal of maximizing the energy delta compared to the enemy. Of course, the flight computers of that time weren't powerful enough to do all this in real-time, and even the flight simulators would need to pause, calculate the new path, then restart. Fun times!
Never heard of this but it's fascinating, thanks for sharing that. There was another poser here in the comments who was a tech and said they couldn't do anything in the NASA F15 cockpit because it was all different, and that got me thinking about how you can't just add tons of features without considering overwhelming the pilot with controls. I would assume they're close to their limits already as to what they can manipulate in a reasonable manner under stress.
To get deep down the rabbithole, there is a quote attributed to Ben Rich of Skunkworks that UFOs operate on consciousness itself.
@@airthrowDBT It’s about making better interfaces to meet the requirements of the aircraft. Companies spend unbelievable amounts of money on designing interfaces for ease of use. For example a cell phone is just an interface to lots of information. That’s why people can do more than they could before there were cell phones.
That doesn’t really make sense unless the programmers had no idea how to write optimized code. That seems like a standard calculus optimization problem.
@@PinkFZeppelin Oh really? You ever done sensor fusion in a 4-D space to predict the flight path of multiple targets and then compare that to all the instrument & flight control data for your own aircraft and calculate the optimum flight path AND the flight control inputs to achieve that route??
@@bumpedhishead636 Actually yeah I’ve written some code for self driving cars. The system combines 360 degree radar signals and vision. It then classifies the objects in the observation space and selects a path. It runs on the equivalent of a Samsung s8. It uses a trained agent rather than a simple mathematic function to be more dynamic so it is a lot more computationally intensive than a generalized function. There are simple pid loops that enact the desires of the agent on the controls of the vehicle. The agent predicts 3 potential potential paths each processor cycle to predict where adjacent cars might be in the future. It has temporal behavior. But in a one on one dogfight it seems you could just use a generalized function as the optimal vector is known for a given vector of the enemy. The latency best case latency which is achieved for our stuff is just the cycle rate of the processor. There is still a ton of optimization to be had in our code as well. Recently we reduced resources consumption by 20%. Which is nice because it reduces heat and leaves headroom for more complex agents.
I probably used too strong of language I’m sure those programmers were very smart for their time. But generally industrial automation programmers are a bit behind the times in my experience. I used to write code for manufacturing plants. Also algorithms are always advancing so what is general knowledge in the community is probably more optimized these days. Mainly from the increase of scale and distributed technologies being commonplace.
I couldn’t find info on the flight computers of the late 90s which is what I assumed your timeframe would be. So it’s hard for me to say what they had to work with. But more computation is often just a bandaid for code that isn’t optimized well. There was the darpa self driving challenge around 2000 and those vehicles were able to cross a desert with the available tech.
the F 15 is such a beast. it can accelerate STRAIGHT UP
So could the much earlier 1950s English Electric Lightning
Correction: The F-15 is not an air superiority fighter. It is an air ownership fighter, and currently the only one.
How cool. Thanks for sharing
McDonnell-Douglas St. Louis Mo. from Oct 1987 till July 1999. Saw a lot of this plane before it's ferry flight to Edwards AFB.
I was an engineer there from 86 to 94. So much cool stuff going on! ... but then we beat the USSR and lost a few contracts. Very tough times! The F-15 STOL/MTD was just a small part of the fascinating projects in the works back then!
I helped with wind tunnel testing then, too of this beautiful bird!
@@SkyhawkSteve Do you remember an engineer called KZ? He won the Reserve Grand Champion Ultralight in 1993 Oshkosh. We were buddies back in the day!
@@timgarrett203 Hey, Tim! Quite a coincidence to see your name pop up here. This is Chris, also a former McAir Wind Tunnel Test Engineer. I did the hot gas ingestion test on the SMTD.
@@randyhager2054 Don't know him, but MDC was a big place! I was in the electronics company, so didn't interact with a lot of McAir folks.
Perhaps the most attractive and capable of all F-15 Eagles, predating the Su-30 fighters.
Americans predating on vietnamese children 😈
F15 was to best the mig 29
Su 30 beats the f15 as newer and better dog fight
In short complete different birds
@@scottsuttan2123 wrong, the MiG-29 was made to counter the F-15 and F-16, seeing it wasn't put into production until 1983.
Wrong, MiG29 was made to counter F16 and F15 was a competitor to Su 27 and Flankers
@@caelum2185 right as f15 was built in fear of the mig25
dude these vids are awesome
I love listening to this guy on the channel, his voice just adds so much to the videos..don’t care for the other voice over guy, doesn’t keep me interested..so whoever this guy is jeep up the great work..
It was mentioned that some pilots called it "the Frankenstein aircraft" (or weird for that matter) but it is not said why. (because it got parts from other aircraft, like some other NASA test aircraft?)
Yup, or "Johnny Cash Aircraft" after the song where he assembled a Cadillac out of stolen parts.
It mostly got that name because the craft borrowed parts from the Hornet and a few other fighters. The most prominent example are the canards, which were modified from the horizontal stabilizers of the hornet.
Taking off at 42mph??? This is insane!
It sure is. So why only a 25% reduction in TO distance ? Surely doesn’t take 5,600’ to reach 45 mph. Something doesn’t compute. Even gliders stall at that speed
@@sidtp7307 EDIT: I know what we both failed to take into account. It's not just the canards, it's also the vectored thrust, so 42mph would be possible. Effectively it was a VSTOL. A bit like a Harrier.
The screen saver on my phone is a picture of the STOL/MTD version of the aircraft shortly before landing at Edwards AFB from its final flight before retirement. The photo was taken by the chase aircraft. I did some work at the Darden FTC, over a few years, and a friend there sent me a copy of the photo. Something I cherish.
I saw two fly below me in Nevada mountains way back in 1974. Yes, below me! Impressive!
This aircraft was not "too weird" for the Air Force, it was an experimental plane, exploring the use of canard wings and nozzle vectoring.
As we know, some of the latter was implemented on the F-22 Raptor.
The US Air Force decided to go for optimal stealth, something the experimental F-15 was lacking completely.
One would think they would make the Eagle as capable as possible though, since the modifications were a resounding success, and the Eagle is still being produced today.
6:30 & 11:10 - They said it was a testbed for the next generation of aircraft in the video.
@@trailingrails9953 To make it a fighter, they would have had to find a different place in the airframe for the gun and its ammunition drum, since the M61 cannon was mounted in the wing root and that space in the demonstrator was taken up by the canard actuators. Today it wouldn't matter as much since they could mount a gun pod on the centerline pylon, but at the time the available SUU-23/A gun pod was notoriously inaccurate and consistently failed to remain stationary on its mount, making it difficult to aim, a problem that got worse as the mission progressed. Maybe a canard-mounted F-15EX+ variant could be developed that uses the GAU-22/A gun pod from the F-35, but more likely that coin is permanently spent.
@@trailingrails9953
My thoughts exactly.
It was originally proposed as a production vehicle (the "STOL"), not a research plane ("MTD" was where it ended up after being handed over to NASA).
It was quickly kicked under the rug to prevent it being seen as an alternative, and having congress get into any funding debates regarding the ATF program.
But yes, it was not "too weird", it was a threat to 5th gen funding.
The F-15 was an incredible aircraft!
Is a great aircraft
Still is
@@JohnCarlyle it's even better!
Most people (including most reporting and official sources) don't realize that the "STOL/MTD" was _first_ the STOL... and was proposed as a production aircraft with short takeoff & landing, and advanced maneuvering capability.
And a production model would have included a relocated gun (probably an offset dorsal mount kinda like on the F-4). There was space inside the fuselage behind the pilot for the hardware. Though it would have had a small offset for the mouth of the gun, to keep it from lining up on the front gear.
There were also versions in the wind tunnel which had the rear horizontal stabilizers deleted, since the 2-D thrust vectoring and forward canards would have provided massive overkill in control anyway, the rear horizontals really became dead weight & drag. There was talk even of making it FBW, and slaving the gunsight to the sensors & FBW to fully leverage the phenomenal off-axis nose pointing capabilities.
It didn't become the "MTD" until it was given to NASA at the air force's suggestion. It was NOT "too weird" for the air force. USAF tried to quickly get the proposed plane away from the attention of congress, for fear of distracting funding away from the ATF program (YF-23 & F-22). If McDD had known they were gonna get screwed on the YF-23 decision, they probably wouldn't have cooperated with erasing the F-15 STOL from the public eye.
It would have paired well with the Silent Eagle package too, since it would lack the angle of the verticals over the rear horizontals. And the front canards would have been significantly different than the test plane, which just used a stolen pair of F-18 horizontal stabilizers for them for basic testing of the layout.
Anyway, a production STOL probably would have looked something like this: dGCSgFh.jpg (paste into an Imgur url after the "com/" )
@@Feroce ah yeah, I maybe could've been more clear.
" i _dot_ imgur _dot_ com/dGCSgFh.jpg "
Very few youtubers allow links in their comments section for obvious reasons. but imgur is a widely used site which to my knowledge is completely safe, and this isn't spam, so I'm skirting the system hehe.
I admit the tail booms look a little odd without horizontal stabilizers. And really, the deletion of the rear horizontal stabilizers was just something being explored, as the canards and the 2D thrust vectoring pretty well have that form of control very thoroughly covered. The tail booms could be reshaped (and lightened), if not needing a mating surface & structural rigidity to mount horizontal stabilizers. But that would add a bit of extra expense to redesign.
The canards angling up, and the thrust pointing down, allows it to stay airborne (or take off) at extremely low speeds. Ergo the runway length requirement is a fraction of the regular F-15. Makes it harder to disable a forward air base, since even a modest portion of the runway is all that would be needed to survive and/or be repaired to have flight operations.
The side effect though is that it offers the low-speed agility of thrust vectoring, which would erase the F-15's one weak area (turn rate at very low altitude). Largely the eagle has the power to simply avoid being pulled into a rate fight on the deck, but a STOL could turn with as much force as any pilot can take at almost any speed. It _also_ means that the nose can point up or down independently of the forward direction of travel (to a degree). Maintaining lift deeper into negative AoA, or increasing positive AoA limit due to the canards shoving air back over the wings to mitigate stall.
By the time it was proposed, sidewinder & amraam missiles with wide angle seekers would allow for pretty big off-axis shots. But it would empower gun aiming, to shoot inside a turn dramatically better. Basically it would allow an F-15 to follow an F-16 into the F-16's ideal fight, and beat it there.
I included FAST packs (the conformal fuel tanks "fuel and sensor tactical") on the fuselage. Some think it adds weight & drag, but it's substantially less drag than a drop tank. And weapons mounted conformally to it have less drag than they do if out on a pylon. Plus sensor bearing fast packs can eliminate pods which add drag & weight. So personally I think the air force under-utilizes them (not frequently seen outside of E models). Manufacturer's suggested spec is to use them for "most" types of sortie, and definitely not just to sell more kit.
The aesthetics of the gun port is pure speculation. I modeled it on the F-4's chin gun protrusion. But that is where it would have been relocated to. In the models prior to E, there is empty fuselage space behind the cockpit area in the center of gravity. Deliberately left empty for future upgrades without balance issues. It would fit the vulcan 20mm. On the E's, that space was used for extra fuel though. So they'd have to either sacrifice a bit of fuel, or go without a gun (if one wanted an F-15E-STOL model).
Anyway, this was what was being pitched to the USAF as a production aircraft option, with the test plane being a bit more halfhazardly pieced together just to proof the concept in actual flight. All before it got sent to NASA and became the "MTD".
Again a great video. Can you please start including Metric measurements along with Imperial? Thank you.
I have had that plane in my head for months and couldn't figure out what it was! Thank you
F-15. Still top dog. Stick AMRAAM on it and it will make up a meme, post it, check emails, crack one off, have a sammich and still have time before wrecking whatever it comes up against. The engines see. The heart and soul of ANY combat aircraft.
Good One. Thanks.
Funny enough while the teaser vid was playing Airwolfs theme came on my computer it was a perfect fit
Interesting, this one in particular on the cover is.
Yoda related to, are you?
@@mkaz3997 questions, have you?
@@JSFGuy Inquisitive, I am.
Lol, you guys... 😆👍
If I were a fighter pilot and I had to go to war without stealth, The F15 is what I want to fly.
Love this channel
No wonder I've always loved this Aircraft the most, still so mystic..
Shame they never implemented it, fantastic looking bird
The problem with canards is that they completely ruin your radar cross-section, that's probably why it wasn't implemented. Even back in the 70s and 80s we were very conscious of radar cross-section, that's what drove a lot of F-16 modifications (probably F-15, too, but I've mainly worked F-16 so I'm most familiar with it). This is why I find it so funny to see Russian and Chinese "stealth" jets with great big canards, LOL.
I'm fortunate enough to live between Portland and Seattle. I hear the F-15 National Guard planes on a regular basis. Love that sound!
This was my favorite plane in Ace Combat. The F-15 with canard wings.
Its a shame UK did not buy a few hundred F15 to replace our Tornado multi-roll fighters.
Perhaps they'll get their chance when the EX gets put into production. Then again they do have their own aerospace industries. Maybe they want to support more local defense contractors.
@@mill2712 Already in production.
The X and EX models are kind of a "last call, anybody else want an F-15?" befor closing the line.
The uk is going with typhoon and F35b. When tempest is ready it will replace typhoons.
Something would really have to change for the uk to get F15s
The F-15S/MTD was actually a USAF/Nasa collaboration to test thrust vector ingredients and different flight controls
The F-15 STOL/Maneuvering Technology Demonstration was a MCAIR/USAF/ PW/GE collaboration from roughly 1986 to 1991. NASA joined the effort in about 1994 and led the ACTIVE and later programs.
Wow, one of my favourite Dark Skies videos. Thanks
Great video! Greetings from Colombia 😊
Honestly wonder what happened to that f-15 after retirement. was it put up for display somewhere?
Yes, it's over in the circle display at Dryden research Edwards AFB.
@@JSFGuy How did you know?
@@danniserendret4301 I drive past it to and from work.
@@JSFGuy Oh alr
@@danniserendret4301 On his way to work, at Area 52.
Let’s go brandon 🍦🍦🍦
😂 cultist
Still my fav after all these years!!!!
Excellent!!!! with English / English narratives....
good narration!
I can imagine an F-15 ACTIV with all the enhancements for the EX and Silent Eagle variants, dominating the skies.
Good to hear they are upgrading it yet again.
Loved the F-15 ACTIVE. Also the missile being fired at 3:12 was my desktop wallpaper for years. That’s an anti-satellite missile being successfully test fired while the Eagle is in a zoom climb. I don’t know why it didn’t drop external fuel tanks for the climb, and I don’t know why there’s another weapon on the centerline pylon, so I think there’s more to the photo than meets the eye. But it’s a great picture.
The P-51 Mustang of its time.
Beautiful.
Awesome 👏
Author Dale Brown used this airframe in his book. "Day of the Cheetah". Great read
Amazing aircraft 👌
I was at Edwards AFB while the STOL program was going on.... TDY, not perm party there. The YF23 and YF22 were also in test phases. Great time to be there. 1990.
This is the aircraft I love most. I built a scale model of the version that was based in the Netherlands, my home country.
Cool aircraft, and a cool story. +1
I love all the footage of the 142nd out of PDX ♥️
Dude your docs are next level...
Now the F15x makes sense such a great machine
Two thumbs up 👍👍😎
That is some aeroplane. I have never flown a fast mover but I would love to fly one of these.
Was watching two F 15s doing touch and goes at the airport in San Juan , right into the vertical roll ver the top and another
What’s the music at the start of the video? Also amazing content dude!