Shortly after being received and Officially presented by the US Air Force (USAF), the F-15EX Eagle II has already participated in a large-scale exercise, Northern Edge. The first two F-15EX – out of an initial batch of eight aircraft – shot down and were shot down by simulated targets in training aimed at fighting an enemy of the same level.
At Northern Edge, held in early May, F-15EX flew and integrated with F-15C and E fighters, Eagle and Strike Eagle, F-35 Lightning II and F-22 Raptor.
Currently in operational and development tests, the objective of the participation of the new jets was to see if they could fulfill the role of air superiority fighter, now fulfilled in the Combat Air Forces by the F-15C Eagle, in addition to bringing more capabilities to this type. mission, according to Lieutenant Colonel John O'Rear of the 84th Test and Evaluation Squadron, speaking to Air Force Magazine.
“We flew them in two-aircraft formations with the F-15C and F-15E…”, says the military, also stating that EX-only formations were also carried out, with the aircraft providing to other fourth-generation fighters and integrating with the fifth-generation F-22 and 35.
Although the F-15EX “ed for some kills while they were there”, O'Rear acknowledged that there were also some losses.
“If you do any large forces exercise and come back with everyone alive – no blue losses [blue in this case are allies] – I would probably say your threat is not as robust as it should be in order to get the learning”, he said.
It is important to explain that, in these types of exercises, the important part is training participants and learning from mistakes, not winning 100% of the time. The debriefings and analyzes after the training will bring important data, showing where each participant got it right and, even more important, where he made a mistake and should correct it.
The threat was meant to be a “where we don’t have the ability to go out… and have zero losses”, he said. The question “It's not about winning every game. It’s learning where our weaknesses are and how we mitigate those capability gaps.”, added O'Rear.
Without going into detail about possible kills against the F-15EX, O'Rear explained that, in this type of environment, most Allied defeats happen in combat beyond visual range (BVR). The dogfight – combat within visual range (WVR) "It's not something that happens a lot", he says.
The Eagle IIs also employed their new electronic warfare system, the Eagle ive Active Warning Survivability System (EPAWSS). Although the system has already been employed by a modified F-15E Strike Eagle in the Black Flag exercise, this is the first time that the new jet employs the system.
“We are still collecting data” about the performance of EPAWSS, but initial results “anecdotal” “looks promising”, said O'Rear. “Overall it looks like it was on track for what we expected” at the Northern Edge.
In the exercise, about 50 aircraft from the red (enemy) team flew against a similar number of planes from the blue forces, he said. The EPAWSS “It was able to integrate into a high-powered environment with multiple sources of… radio frequency being transmitted through the airspace… It was able to process that.”
The new set of systems developed by BAE Systems brings a significant increase in the capabilities of the F-15 platform in defending and counteracting electronic emissions, interfering and confusing ground and airborne systems.
Employing the EPAWSS suite successfully, the F-15EX even allowed an F-35A to get even closer to a target, which, in an eventual real combat situation, would increase the probability of target destruction and mission success.
“The more clutter, the more electronic attack you have, the harder it is for enemy sensors to work on it.” EPAWSS was able to integrate with “a coordinated electronic attack on the entire package”.
By connecting with assets from other forces in a “degraded operations environment”, he said, “we saw many spots where we are doing very well and others where we need some work”.
Alternative communication methods included the Link 16 data link and “gateway options” in which an interpreter aircraft translates the special waveforms of stealth aircraft between themselves and fourth-generation aircraft. There was “redundancy and effectiveness throughout the power package”, he said.
Northern Edge's emphasis is different from the world famous Red Flag, held multiple times a year with the participation of other countries - Brazil participated twice -, where learnings are shared with the rest of the Force.
“You have the option of using baseline tactics, but the emphasis is not just on getting upgrades to [Combat Air Forces] wings and flight leaders. It's going out there and doing cutting-edge testing in a sophisticated, highly contested, degraded environment and seeing whether the new tactics we're developing are useful or a hindrance.”
The pilot also highlighted the new capabilities of the F-15EX, such as the touch screen, the fly-by-wire, the EPAWSS itself and the addition of two more hardpoints, which increases the Eagle's weapons transport capacity. “I'm a big fan of the touch screen”, he says.
The F-15EX Eagle II is the most advanced version of the F-15 Eagle, being very similar to the F-15QA acquired by the Qatar Air Force, one of whose prototypes was involved in an incident this week.
One of the outstanding equipment is the Advanced Display Core Processor II, the fastest computer ever used by a fighter, capable of processing 87 billion instructions per second. Its main sensor is the AESA AN/APG-82(V)1 radar, the same one that will be used on the modernized F-15E Strike Eagles.
The USAF has already acquired an initial batch of eight aircraft, and plans to purchase a total of 144 units.
