Although, there are still voices of opposition in the US Congress. However, the US Congress still decided to allocate purchase funds for the latest F-15EX fighter. This fighter is a new upgrade from the original F-15C, although its stealth capability is weaker than that of the F-35A fighter. However, its air superiority capability, ammunition capacity, and range have obvious advantages.
The U.S. Air Force mainly hopes to use F-15EX to replace the old F-15C fighters that are in service with the local National Air Guard. At the same time, the purchase of F-15EX fighters can also speed up the service speed of new fighters, and are more used to replace existing old fighters.
According to the defense blog on September 11, the U.S. Senate Appropriations National Defense Committee has proposed its fiscal year 2020 (FY) budget bill on September 10. The bill mainly invests in and supports the U.S. military. Important plans needed to protect the critical interests of U.S. national security.
The U.S. defense budget bill for fiscal year 2020 is $699.4 billion, which is an increase of $20.5 billion over the defense budget bill formulated in fiscal year 2019. Among them, it includes supporting the Air Force’s plan to purchase the new F-15EX Advanced Eagle fighter jet developed and produced by American aviation giant Boeing.
The members of the Senate National Defense Appropriations Subcommittee recommended that 8 F-15EX aircraft be allocated US$992.4 million in procurement funds, of which 2 were used for testing aircraft mainly for the improvement of the Advanced Eagle Program Research, development, testing and evaluation.
F-15EX is known as the enhanced version of the Strike Eagle due to the changes in appearance. This is also the latest version of the F-15 Eagle fighter. The new EX fighter will be equipped with more advanced avionics and radar, and can carry more than 20 air-to-air missiles; it will become a "bomb truck" in the air.
The improved F-15EX will be able to carry all the air-to-air, air-to-ground and sea strike weapons currently in service by the US military. This allows F-15EX to attack multiple targets in any particular mission.
Because, based on the existing F-15C fleet, its improved design structure has a good control over costs and risks, and the cost of integrating new weapons is also very low.
In addition to enhanced offensive capabilities, F-15EX also integrates a new electronic warfare suite to provide a full range of self-protection capabilities to enable it to respond to various emerging threats. It also allows the F-15EX to survive the attack of modern air defense systems. At the same time, the F-15EX can communicate seamlessly with other fighters. It is also equipped with advanced automatic infrared countermeasures, which greatly improves survival in actual combat. ability.
The brand new F-15EX is also equipped with a more powerful engine, which enables it to have unparalleled flight speed and acceleration capabilities, allowing the fighter to fly to the target position faster.
As for the objection to the poor stealth capability, the US Air Force's explanation is that the F-15EX will give priority to local air defense forces on the one hand, and this task does not require high stealth capabilities. On the other hand, the large ammunition capacity of F-15EX can effectively make up for the insufficient ammunition capacity of F-22A and F-35A. In actual combat, the air-to-air missile launched by the F-15EX can be guided by the F-35A, which increases the attack capability of the stealth fighter unit in a disguised form. F-15EX has acted as the "air weapon arsenal" role.
