{"id":34655,"date":"2024-02-18T09:40:32","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T16:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=34655"},"modified":"2024-02-20T06:25:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T13:25:20","slug":"air-minded-additional-shades-of-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=34655","title":{"rendered":"Air-Minded: Additional Shades of Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_1676\"<\/a>I saw this meme on a fighter pilot’s Instagram and copied it, not just because I appreciate the humor, but also because it touches on a topic I sometimes write about<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Quick background: The F-15C Eagle, currently being retired by the USAF, is a single-seat air-to-air fighter. The F-15E Strike Eagle is a crewed two-seat multi-role fighter-bomber. The USAF’s brand-new F-15EX Eagle II is a two-seater, an improved version of the Strike Eagle.<\/p>\n

Whether the USAF will operate the Eagle II as a crewed aircraft is still up in the air, I think, but the arc is bending in the crewed direction.<\/p>\n

In early 2020, when the Air Force announced the F-15EX buy, most Eagle drivers assumed the new fighter would be a single-seater, like the F-15C it was meant to replace. In fact, early press releases from the USAF and the manufacturer, Boeing, implied the EX would<\/em> be a single-seater, but that the first couple of test aircraft would be two-seaters. By July 2020, however, it became clear that all<\/em> F-15EXs would be two-seaters.<\/p>\n

The USAF originally planned to assign the F-15EX to active and air national guard air-to-air squadrons currently flying the older F-15C. Those units quickly announced their intention to fly them with the back seats empty. That didn’t pass the smell test to me then, and it doesn’t now.<\/p>\n

I think the F-15EX will inevitably be operated as a crewed multi-role fighter-bomber. Air-to-air squadrons will fly it in that role, but will add air-to-ground as a secondary mission, and WSOs will be assigned to those squadrons. Some F-15EX aircraft will go to Strike Eagle squadrons to replace older aircraft, and will be operated in the that aircraft’s role (air-to-ground primary, air-to-air secondary).<\/p>\n

There’s always been a pitched rivalry between the single-seat and two-seat fighter communities, evident in the meme I copied. The average F-15 Eagle pilot (me, anyway) sees the two-seat pilot\/WSO Eagle II as a step backward to F-4 Phantom\/F-111 Aardvark days. Still a fighter, no doubt more capable than the single-seat Eagle, but …<\/p>\n

\u2014 back to the Air-Minded Index<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The average F-15 Eagle pilot (and me for sure) sees the two-seat pilot\/WSO Eagle II as a step backward to F-4 Phantom\/F-111 Aardvark days. Still a fighter, no doubt more capable than the single-seat Eagle, but …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1960,3,14],"tags":[4507,4380,4379,4508],"class_list":["post-34655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-minded","category-flying","category-military","tag-airminded-2","tag-f15eagle-2","tag-sierrahotel","tag-strikeeagle"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34655"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34667,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34655\/revisions\/34667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}