The F-15E Strike Eagle is an American all-weather multirole strike fighter that was derived from McDonnell Douglas's F-15 Eagle. The F-15E was designed in the 1980s for long range, high speed interdiction without relying on escorts or electronic-warfare aircraft. The USAF F-15E Strike Eagle can be generally distinguished from other Eagle variants by darker camouflage, conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) mounted along the engine intake ramps, and a tandem-seat cockpit.

The Strike Eagle has been deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya, and among many others.

The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle was introduced by the USAF to replace its fleet of F-4 Phantoms. Unlike the F-4s, the F-15 was designed for air superiority mission with little consideration for ground-attack or airstrike roles. F-15E was meant to replace the General Dynamics F-111s.

Starting in March 1981, the USAF announced the Enchanced Tactical Fighter program to replace the F-111, although the program would later be renamed as the Dual-Role Fighter (DRF) program. The DRF program was meant to compete with other companies for the candidate. General Dynamics submitted the F-16XL, while McDonnell Douglas submitted the F-15E. The Panavia Tornado was also a candidate, but despite a multirole fighter; it wasn't an air-superiority and American-made aircraft. On February 1984, McDonnell Douglas won and the aircraft would later enter service in 1988.

There are 525 currently existing F-15Es.

The aircraft made its first combat operation in 1991 during the Gulf War but it was kinda obselete, despite it was introduced 3 years ago. During a combat operation, an F-15E failed to shoot down a Mikoyan MiG-29, other F-15Es also failed to shoot it down but was finally downed by a missile of unknown origin. Another time when F-15Es almost failed is that during a strike against a petrol oil and lubricant plant near Basrah, an F-15E was shot down since the plant was heavily fortified by SAMs and anti-air artillery. Again despite its weaknesses, it was also proved to be effective; it had destroyed several Scud sites, and 18 Iraqi jets by bombs. The aircraft also served strike missions during the Balkans War, and would serve 5 more military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The aircraft is powered by two Pratt & Whitney F-100-PW-220 afterburning turbofan engines, it has a top speed of 2,656 km/h (900 mph/1,434 kn) or at Mach 2.5, and has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.93.

The aircraft is armed with a single 20mm M61A1 Vulcan 6-barreled Gatling cannon, four AIM-7 Sparrows, 4 AGM-130 air-to-surface missiles, and 6 Mark 82 bombs with 2 GATOR mine systems.

The aircraft is used by the United States, Israel, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore.

GUIDES :

AG-1 = Activation of Sparrows

AG-2 = Activation of Air-to-Surface missiles

AG-3 & 4 = Detachment of drop tanks

BTW, Enjoys ;)