Cool F15 dogfight video
 

I dont know if there has been a modern day jet fighter dogfight since VN but this is apparently what it would look like.
Added plus the music isn't Danger Zone TG.


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5 Finger Death Punch has straight up ruined this video.

Sadly, the F-15 will probably be the most badass bird on the planet for another 20 years or so after we retire her for the goddamn F-35.

The F-15SA we're selling to Saudi Arabia but not building for ourselves is an absolutely insane aircraft. They essentially took the Strike Eagle, put the most badass gadgets we have in it and activated every outboard wing station it has so it's weapons payload is pretty much unprecedented.

The gadget mentality that has us phasing out superior aircraft like the A-10 and F-15 in the name of absolute dogs like the F-35 is damn disappointing. I don't normally bitch about the military industrial complex, but it sure seems like we built the F-35 just to say we built it and not because it was needed or even better than what we had already.

Really cool video.

Programs like the F-35 are an attempt to keep costs down by combining the roles of multiple previous generation platforms into one. The result inevitably involves performance trade offs, unfortunately.

That was awesome

Except there's a pretty good chance that the cost overruns associated with making the F-35 all things to all people, not to mention the different variants required, has made it where maintaining separate airframes would almost certainly have been more cost effective.

The F-35 may have been a decent idea in theory but it should have been scrapped well before it got this far.

I haven't followed the F-35 problems so I'll defer to you on that, but maintaining not only separate airframes, but also the industrial capacity to continue their production is pretty costly.

There's a lot of pressure right now from people who don't appreciate the value of our national defense infrastructure to use the defense budget as a piggy bank from which to fund all sorts of non-defense spending. I'd be thrilled if it were feasible to continue to have a dedicated air superiority airframe, a dedicated close air support airframe, a dedicated medium attack airframe, etc. I just don't see it being politically supportable.

The F-35A isn't meant to be an air superiority fighter though. That's the purview of F-15s and F-22s. It can defend itself in a pinch, but the aforementioned jets are the ones meant to neutralize other fighters... Assuming Raptor pilots don't die of cancer first.

You're right.

... and I guess the same applies to the Navy's F-35Cs and the F-18E/Fs in terms of which airframe takes on air superiority and ground attack roles..

None of those are worthwhile, computer operated planes without pilots are the only thing we should be building. Humans are obsolete in aerial combat, or will be shortly.

Try the next year's model with Avenged Sevenfold...

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Kadena Air Base, Fighting Cocks ZZ's in the house. My old base and squadron. If you didn't know...fighter pilots are straight up crazy. But they throw a hell of a party...

Added plus?

Kenneth Loggins is da man brotha. And instead 5FDP had to ruin our ears.

This sucks to hear...

Like the end of the F-14, it's hard to watch bad-ass planes get retired when you know they won't be replaced by enough newer bad-ass planes..

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When were you at Kadena?