Why The F-15 Terrified The Soviets

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Published 2023-04-13
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More than 50 years after making its first flight, the F-15 Eagle remains one of the most capable fighter aircraft ever developed.

The F-15 was born from the difficult lessons learned during the Vietnam War. In the late 1950s, Air Force planners were confident that the advent of powerful new radars and long-range air-to-air missiles had rendered close-range aerial combat a thing of the past. So fighter jets like venerable the Mcdonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom were not engineered to be light or agile like their predecessors. Instead, they were designed to be heavily-loaded with missiles and carry powerful radars. Their pilots were no longer trained to dogfight, as they would engage the enemy at great distances, well beyond visual range.

But in the Vietnam War, military planners learned the hard way that the age of dogfighting was far from over. American pilots were being downed at alarming rates. The Friend or Foe (IFF) systems designed to identify enemy targets proved unreliable, forcing Air Force pilots to get in close to visually identify targets. At close-range, up against more agile Soviet-built MiGs, the F-4s were at a disadvantage. They were less agile than the MiGs, lacked a gun for close-range combat, and their pilots weren’t properly trained. To make matters worse, 1967, the Soviet Union looked set to unveil what appeared to be a new super-fighter built for extreme maneuverability.

The devastating experience from Vietnam and concerns being outclassed in the skies pushed the United States to develop a new air-superiority fighter that could face off with any current or future Soviet-built fighter. The result would be a twin-engine, high-performance, all-weather air superiority fighter known for its incredible acceleration and agility. Engineered from the ground up for tactical dominance in any air space, the F-15 holds the distinction of over a hundred aerial victories without a single defeat.

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All Comments (21)
  • @NinjaMan47
    It's kind of poetic; the Soviets oversold a jet's capabilities and knew it could never do all the things they claimed. The American D.o.D. took their adversary at face value and so built a jet that could equal or excel their Soviet counterpart. This results in a jet that actually dominates their direct competition. It was a solution to a problem that never actually existed.
  • I once heard. The F-15 doesn’t produce lift. It beats the atmosphere into submission
  • @Night_Star6248
    the f-15 landed with only one wing, shot a satellite, hit a fucking helicopter with a guided bomb, and has a god damn 104:0 kill ratio. Damn what an aircraft
  • @Juan-os4hs
    When bluffing you enemy goes wrong... Because your enemy then builds something to counter your bluff.
  • I am a former F 15 aircraft mechanic while I was in active duty Air Force, then I transitioned over to the KC 135 in the reserve. Thank you my friend. Thank you so much.
  • This channel is the definition of a great channel on YouTube. No bullshit, just raw facts, amazing animations, historical content and easy to understand. No click bait just quality content from a passionate group of people. Love you guys at Mustard ❤
  • @_personoid_5897
    I can not recall if it were Lazerpig, Animarchy History, or Falcon's Fighter Tales, but one of them made a video where they talked about how adding guns to American jets were not what changed US performance in Vietnam. It was new training. This was demonstrated in the equally increased performance by Navy Phantoms which did not get gunpods.
  • @kanesword9528
    As a current F15 Crew Chief, i can say this has been my favorite fighter since i was 10 years old when it first came out. It's just a badass looking, flying and fighting aircraft.
  • This channel is the definition of “quality over quantity”.
  • I’m a 15 Crew Chief, there’s so many stories to tell. One of my personal favorites is quickly scrolled by at 11:30. A single E Model with an air to air kill. The jet was doing an intercept to assist some Green Berets, and there were some helicopters dropping troops off to attack the paratroopers. The pilot released his 2000 pound bomb trying to hit the helicopter as it dropped off troops, but as he released the bomb, the helicopter took off. The back seater didn’t break the laser targeting, and the rest was history. Helicopter evaporated, only Air to Air kill with a bomb. The jet was Named “Lucky” and it still has its star under it’s canopy sill. It’s reaching the end of it’s lifetime, and a museum has already paid and reserved it.
  • @michaelramon2411
    As an aside, Viktor Belenko, the Soviet defector who handed over the Foxbat, just recently died, an American citizen with few regrets. Also, the US returned said Foxbat to the Soviet Union - in pieces, having completely autopsied the thing first.
  • Uncle Sam really backed himself into a corner with an imaginary super plane and still won
  • @davewebster5120
    The F-14 is the beauty queen, but the 15 is who takes them home. The fact that it still punches above its weight many decades later is testament to how ahead of its time it was.
  • @Sean-jv6bd
    Something about the f15’s airframe from top down view (6:14) just screams “air superiority fighter”—like the perfect balance between a high speed interceptor and an agile dogfighter. It’s so iconic.
  • @30AndHatingIt
    It’s nuts that the US actually fielded TWO air superiority fighters in the F-15 Eagle and F-14 Tomcat at the same time.
  • @Grenadier311
    A quick glance at its air-to-air kill ratio (100+ to 0) is a good testament of the Eagle's quality. Perceived necessity married to ingenuity is the mother of invention.
  • @alextuffs
    My late father worked for general dynamics and ended up spending most his life doing research in radars and working in and around f-15. Proud son moment 😊