Photo: USAF/1st Lt. Lindsey Heflin
In some ways, the world of military aviation is a very conservative one. Once it got its hands on something that works, it has a tendency to hold on to it for decades or, as the B-52 Stratofortress will soon prove, even for centuries.
Most of the present-day fighter jets used by the U.S. Air Force are about 50 years old, but even these aging families do get new members from time to time. In the case of the F-15, the newest member is the F-15EX Eagle II, presented by Boeing just a couple of years ago.
The plane is still in its testing stages, with the last piece of news concerning it coming our way in November last year, when we learned the upcoming fleet of Eagle IIs would be using General Electric’s F110-GE-129 engines.
At the time of writing, there are just two of these aircraft in operation, deployed with the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The pilots there have been out and about for months now, trying to get a feel of the plane.
Their more recent achievement has to do with the offensive capabilities of the aircraft. Earlier in January, the plane managed to fire its first missile, not in the heat of combat, but during a test flight over the Gulf of Mexico.
The firing was part of an air-to-air weapons system evaluation program (WESP) and called for the airplane to shoot an AIM-120D missile at a drone. According to the USAF, there was no impact, as “the shot was determined a WSEP success, at which point the missile flight was terminated.”
This was the F-15EX Eagle II’s first live fire mission, “an end-to-end verification of the entire weapons system, which will pave the way for more complex missile shots in the future,” as Colton Myers, F-15EX test project manager with the Operational Flight Program Combined Test Force, said in a statement.
Testing of the aircraft will continue this year, with the USAF planning to make the new variant of the plane part of a so-called streamlined fleet of aircraft, comprising the F-35 Lightning II, F-16 Fighting Falcon, A-10 Thunderbolt II, and a brand new, sixth-generation aircraft.
The plane is still in its testing stages, with the last piece of news concerning it coming our way in November last year, when we learned the upcoming fleet of Eagle IIs would be using General Electric’s F110-GE-129 engines.
At the time of writing, there are just two of these aircraft in operation, deployed with the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The pilots there have been out and about for months now, trying to get a feel of the plane.
Their more recent achievement has to do with the offensive capabilities of the aircraft. Earlier in January, the plane managed to fire its first missile, not in the heat of combat, but during a test flight over the Gulf of Mexico.
The firing was part of an air-to-air weapons system evaluation program (WESP) and called for the airplane to shoot an AIM-120D missile at a drone. According to the USAF, there was no impact, as “the shot was determined a WSEP success, at which point the missile flight was terminated.”
This was the F-15EX Eagle II’s first live fire mission, “an end-to-end verification of the entire weapons system, which will pave the way for more complex missile shots in the future,” as Colton Myers, F-15EX test project manager with the Operational Flight Program Combined Test Force, said in a statement.
Testing of the aircraft will continue this year, with the USAF planning to make the new variant of the plane part of a so-called streamlined fleet of aircraft, comprising the F-35 Lightning II, F-16 Fighting Falcon, A-10 Thunderbolt II, and a brand new, sixth-generation aircraft.
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