AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 181 / 185

Plate 181 of 185 · Cold War · Air superiority fighter

McDonnell Douglas F-15A Eagle

F-15A, painted as 76-0020, IWM Duxford’s McDonnell Douglas F-15A Eagle, an F-15A-15-MC built for the US Air Force and now shown in the American Air Museum: the US Air Force’s single-seat, twin-engined air-superiority fighter, 42 ft 10 in in span, with two Pratt & Whitney F100 afterburning turbofans fed by large rectangular variable-ramp intakes either side of the cockpit, a broad flat fuselage with a shoulder-set cropped-delta wing, twin fins, all-moving tailplanes with a dogtooth leading edge, a large bubble canopy and a dorsal airbrake, shown standing on its tricycle undercarriage with three 600 US gallon drop tanks, four AIM-7 Sparrow missiles on the lower fuselage corners and empty rails on the wing pylons: ‘Compass Ghost’ grey camouflage, darker grey on top and lighter grey on the sides and undersides, a grey radome with a small black tip, black bands under the fin-tip fairings, a full-colour star-and-bar on the forward fuselage, the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing’s black ‘BT’ tail code over ‘AF 76’ and ‘020’ on the outer faces of the fins and ‘020’ on the nose-gear door, as repainted for display (in the museum it hangs from the roof with its undercarriage up; the model shows it on its wheels, the port upper-wing star-and-bar follows standard US Air Force practice rather than a photograph, and the grey shades are judged by eye under museum lighting).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as 76-0020, IWM Duxford’s McDonnell Douglas F-15A Eagle, an F-15A-15-MC built for the US Air Force and now shown in the American Air Museum: the US Air Force’s single-seat, twin-engined air-superiority fighter, 42 ft 10 in in span, with two Pratt & Whitney F100 afterburning turbofans fed by large rectangular variable-ramp intakes either side of the cockpit, a broad flat fuselage with a shoulder-set cropped-delta wing, twin fins, all-moving tailplanes with a dogtooth leading edge, a large bubble canopy and a dorsal airbrake, shown standing on its tricycle undercarriage with three 600 US gallon drop tanks, four AIM-7 Sparrow missiles on the lower fuselage corners and empty rails on the wing pylons: ‘Compass Ghost’ grey camouflage, darker grey on top and lighter grey on the sides and undersides, a grey radome with a small black tip, black bands under the fin-tip fairings, a full-colour star-and-bar on the forward fuselage, the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing’s black ‘BT’ tail code over ‘AF 76’ and ‘020’ on the outer faces of the fins and ‘020’ on the nose-gear door, as repainted for display (in the museum it hangs from the roof with its undercarriage up; the model shows it on its wheels, the port upper-wing star-and-bar follows standard US Air Force practice rather than a photograph, and the grey shades are judged by eye under museum lighting). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (897 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (A); engine, crew and dimensions are for the F-15A modelled here.

History

The F-15A Eagle

In the mid-1960s the US Air Force was flying the F-4 Phantom, a big, capable aircraft designed for the US Navy as a missile-armed interceptor. Over Vietnam it proved less agile than the small Soviet-built MiGs it met, and in 1967 the Soviet Union showed the MiG-25, which seemed to promise a new generation of very fast fighters. The Air Force’s answer was the F-X programme for a pure air-superiority fighter, with the slogan “not a pound for air-to-ground”. McDonnell Douglas won the contract in December 1969 with a design built around a large wing, two powerful engines and a big radar, and the first F-15A flew at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 27 July 1972.

The Eagle was built to out-climb and out-turn anything it might meet and to find it first. Its two Pratt & Whitney F100 turbofans together gave more thrust than the aircraft weighed, so it could accelerate while climbing straight up. Large rectangular intakes with movable ramps fed the engines, and they tilted with the angle of attack to keep the airflow smooth. The broad wing gave a low wing loading for hard turns, and the high, bubble canopy gave the pilot a clear view all round. The Hughes APG-63 pulse-Doppler radar could track low-flying targets against the ground, and the aircraft carried four AIM-7 Sparrow and four AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles and a 20 mm M61 cannon. The first aircraft for training reached Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, in November 1974, and the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing at Langley, Virginia, became the first operational unit in 1976.

From 1977 the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing at Bitburg, West Germany, flew Eagles as the front line against the Warsaw Pact’s fighters. 384 F-15As were built, followed by the improved F-15C and the two-seat F-15B and D, and the Eagle was also bought by Israel, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Israeli F-15s scored the type’s first kills in 1979, and in the Gulf War of 1991 USAF Eagles shot down more than thirty Iraqi aircraft. Across all its users the F-15 has been credited with more than a hundred air-to-air victories without being shot down by an enemy aircraft. The two-seat F-15E Strike Eagle turned it into a long-range strike aircraft, and the 48th Fighter Wing has flown F-15s from RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk since the early 1990s. In the gazetteer it can be seen at IWM Duxford.

This airframe

F-15A 76-0020

76-0020The airframe modelled

76-0020 is an F-15A-15-MC, one of the Eagles bought for the US Air Force in the 1976 financial year. After its service with the Air Force it came to IWM Duxford, where it was at first shown outside the American Air Museum in the markings of its last unit, the 5th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, and in 2009 was restored by the 48th Equipment Maintenance Squadron from RAF Lakenheath. When the American Air Museum was redeveloped in the mid-2010s it was repainted with the ‘BT’ tail code of the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing at Bitburg, the first USAFE wing to fly the Eagle, and it now hangs from the roof of the museum. The model shows it in that scheme: ‘Compass Ghost’ greys, darker on top and lighter on the sides and undersides, a grey radome with a small black tip, a full-colour star-and-bar on the forward fuselage, black bands under the fin-tip fairings, ‘BT’ over ‘AF 76’ and ‘020’ on the outer faces of both fins and ‘020’ on the white nose-gear door. It carries three 600 US gallon drop tanks and four AIM-7 Sparrows, with empty rails on the wing pylons. In the museum its undercarriage is up; the model stands it on its wheels. The port upper-wing star-and-bar follows standard US Air Force practice rather than a photograph, and the grey shades are judged by eye under museum lighting.

See it at IWM Duxford

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the F-15A Eagle in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 185 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.