From what I understand, we have the F-15, F-16, F-117, F-22 and F-35.
Why do we need all these different models? I assume each specializes in something…what is it?
In: Engineering
The US Government would love nothing more than to have a single airplane that can do everything, but so called multi-role fighters have a huge flaw in that they ‘jack of all trades, master of none’.
If you compromise an aircrafts capabilities too much to make it do everything, then it can’t perform any of those roles effectively. So there is always a need for dedicated aircraft to perform specific roles. But multi-role planes share maintenance, parts, and training so there’s a cost savings there as well.
Multi-role fighters have also historically been notorious for going way over budget and being an overall disappointment. This has been an argument for and against multi-role planes in politics for decades. Some multi-role planes have been successes, others have been abject failures.
The US Air Force therefore maintains a fleet of mixed multi-role and dedicated aircraft. Since the 1970s the philosophy has been to have a mix of a small number of expensive dedicated aircraft and large numbers of cheaper multi-role aircraft.
The F-15C Eagle is an air superiority fighter, ie shoot down your opponents planes
F-15E Strike Eagle replaced the F-111 as a fighter-bomber than can precision bomb targets as well as fight
The F-16 Viper is a light and cheap multi-role fighter than can bomb and fight
The F-117 Nighthawk is a stealth bomber, it does precision bombing while avoiding enemy radar. It’s meant to be used day 1 of a war when the airspace isn’t controlled by the US. It technically should be a B designation, but F was chosen likely to hide it’s true purpose.
F-22 Raptor is the replacement of the F-15C and is far FAR better at shooting down enemy planes. But it’s too expensive to operate in larger numbers.
F-35 Panther (known to the pilots as *Fat Amy*) is a multi-role monstrosity meant to replace the F-16, F-18, Harrier jet, and a variety of platforms. It’s stealth, can fight, can bomb, and do other stuff but it’s arguably not particularly great at any of those roles. It’s main advantage is stealth and the ability to coordinate multiple planes together, you can’t see it until it’s too late. It is so far untested in an actual war, but it sounds like they’ve fixed a lot of the problems in the past few years.
So back in the 60s, between the USAF and US Navy we had a shitload of different fighters and strike aircraft for all sorts of different roles. The Navy and Air Force got together and agreed we should try to standardize around a couple of aircraft to simplify logistics. Thus, the Tactical Fighter Expermintal was born.
The TFX failed, the F111 Aardvark wasn’t even close to the plane they wanted, so the Navy ended up picking up the F-14 Tomcat for their interdictor, and left the Air Force out to dry. So the Air Force pivoted to the F-X program, a dedicated air superiority fighter whose job was to fight MIGs and not much else. Then the Soviets announced the MIG25 and we got scared shitless that they now had a supersonic fighter that we couldn’t match. So they poured all their resources into the F-X program and came up with the F-15, a powerful high speed interceptor that could outfly any Russian bomber in the sky.
Unfortunately for standardization, there was a group of generals and thinkers in the Air Force called the “Fighter Mafia” who thought the F15 was too fat and heavy to be a good fighter, and too expensive to outfit the entire Air Force with. They wanted something lightweight and maneuverable to dogfight with MIG-21s, and cheap enough to flood the skies with. Thus began the LightWeight Fighter program, which eventually produced the F16: a highly maneuverable, cost effective multi role fighter capable of Air to air combat and ground strikes.
Shortly after, the sneaky boys over at DARPA/Area 51 started messing around with stealth tech to come up with a fighter that couldn’t be detected by radar, and eventually created the highly experimental F-117 Nighthawk, which never saw widespread deployment and was mostly used as a testbed, though it did see quite a bit of action in the 1st Gulf War.
Shortly after the F16 won the LWF competition, the Navy realized it was kind of a neat concept, and a lightweight multirole would be a good complement to the big, expensive F14. VFA-X saw McDonnell Douglas’ competitor to the F16, then dubbed the YF-17, evolve into the F-18 Hornet naval aviators know and love.
20 years later, the F-117 has proven the effectiveness of stealth tech and the F16/F15 are getting kind of old, so the Air Force begins the Advanced Tactical Fighter program to create the next generation of modern, high tech, stealthy air superiority fighters and counter the new Sukhoi SU-27 and MiG-29 fighters. And so the F-22 is created: the world’s most advanced air-to-air killer.
Problem is, the F-22 is fucking *expensive*. So ~~the Air Force~~Congress decides to keep the F15 and F16 around and just update their electronics and such to modern standards. So we have the F16E/F and the F15EX for multirole/strike fighters, and the F-22 as air superiority/interceptor.
The F-18 also got old, and the F-22 is way to fat to be a carrier fighter, so the USAF, USN, and USMC all got together to create the Joint Strike Fighter program. Similar to the ATF, the JSF was envisioned to be the next generation of modern, stealthy, high tech multirole fighters to supplant the aging F-18 as a carrier based and expeditionary fighter. The JSF program produced the F-35 -A, -B, and -C variants, the most advanced carrier based strike fighter in the world.
So, to sum up, we have:
The F-15, an older high speed interceptor/strike fighter retained as an updated multirole aircraft to serve alongside –
The F-16, an older lightweight multirole aircraft retained as a cheaper alternative to –
The F-22, a modern top-tier air superiority fighter which serves alongside –
The F-35, a modern top-tier multirole strike fighter that supplements the Air Force’s retinue and staffs the USN’s carriers and the USMCs expeditionary airfield.
And the F117 with is the old grandpa faffing around at home testing shit.
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