Just completed my first drawing in over a year. My artistic muscles are definitely a bit flabby, but I think I turned out a decent drawing. Granted it’s more a design rendition than what might truly be considered art. I call it the F-15M Stealth Eagle and it is an evolution of Boeing’s Silent Eagle concept. Changes include making it a single seat fighter instead of a two-seater and adding more stealth features. I also enlarged the control surfaces, as well as reshaping the wingtips, tail, and the conformal fuel tanks which also contain multiple internal weapons bays. While still not a true all-aspect stealth fighter, it’s pretty close. It would definitely outclass the Su-57 and at least match the J-20 for stealth. Between that, it’s sensor capabilities, sensor fusion (not anywhere near as good as an F-35’s, but still better than any 4th gen Fighter), and supercruise ability, it would certainly qualify as a 5th Generation fighter. 

      Basically, all of the technology I put into this notional design already exists. Two exceptions would be the AN/AAQ-42 MAS and the F115-PW-200 engines which don’t actually exist. These two things don’t represent any new technologies though. The AN/AAQ-42 is basically a hybrid of the AN/AAQ-37 DAS and the AN/AAQ-32 IRST with 3 sensors arranged in a single scanning axis. Likewise, the AN/ASQ-239(v2) used by this plane is essentially the same EW system used by the F-35, but has a few features (like the ALE-70 towed decoy) omitted and has been modified to work within the F-15 airframe. The F-115 engines are basically shortened and thus less powerful versions of the F-119 engines used on the F-22 Raptor.

There would also be a naval variant that would look nearly identical externally, designated the F-15N Sea Eagle (and a two-seat F-15O Ocean Eagle). That’s one of the reasons for the larger wings and flaps as well as the higher empty weight versus previous (and real) Eagle versions. This is basically my vision of what the F-15X could have been. There would also be export variants with four other countries using some version of this plane. Some would look almost identical to the American versions, while others would differ quite a bit visually depending on the needs, priorities, and budget of the client nation. For those that want to know, it’s specifications would be as follows:

Boeing F-15M Stealth Eagle
General characteristics
-Crew: 1 (pilot)
-Length: 63.5 ft (19.35m)
-Wingspan: 42.8 ft (13.05m)
-Height: 16.25 ft (4.95m)
-Wing area: 680 ft2 (63.1m2)
-Empty weight: 33,000 lb (14,970kg)
-Loaded weight: 58,800 lb internal air-to-air configuration (26,670kg)
-Max. takeoff weight: 81,000 lb (36,700kg)
-Powerplant: 2 x Pratt & Whitney F115-PW-200 afterburning turbofans with thrust vectoring in pitch and roll axes
-Dry thrust: 23,250 lbf (103.3kN) each
-Thrust with afterburner: 33,900 lbf (150.6kN) each

Performance
-Maximum speed: Mach 2+ (1,320+ mph, 2,128+ km/h)
-Supercruise: Mach 1.55+ (1023+ mph, 1,646+ km/h)
-Rate of climb: 55,000+ ft/min (279+ m/s)
-Service ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,200 m)
-Combat radius: 700 nmi clean (805 mi, 1,295 km); 570 (with 100 nmi in supercruise) clean (655 mi, 1,055 km)
-Ferry Range: 2,100 nmi (2,415 mi, 3,885 km) with 3 external drop tanks
Maximum g-load: +9 g

Armament
-Guns: 1x 20 mm (0.787in) M61A2 Vulcan 6-barreled Gatling cannon with 500 rounds
-Hardpoints: 8x internal hardpoints in four conformal weapons bays and two ventral weapons bays, with a combined maximum capacity of 5,000 lb (2,265 kg), typical A2A loadout being 6x AIM-120D AMRAAM AA missiles & 2x AIM-9X Sidewinder AA missiles, 5x external hardpoints (4 underwing, 1 central fuselage) with a maximum capacity of 20,500 lb (9,300kg) of ordnance, pods, and/or external fuel tanks, total carrying capacity is 23,000 lb (10,400kg)

Avionics
-AN/APG-82(v2) active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar
-AN/AAQ-42 Electro-Optical MAS (Multi Aperture System; composed of 3 separate infrared sensors; 1 facing forward, 1 facing left, & 1 facing right with a continuous  330 degree arc of sensor coverage in the x-axis) 
-AN/AAQ-40 Electro-Optic Targeting System (EOTS)                           
-AN/AAR-56 Missile Launch Detector (MLD)
-Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS)
-BAE Systems AN/ASQ-239(v2) ‘Barracuda’ Electronic Warfare System
-Digital “Fly-by-Wire” Flight Control System (DFCS)
-Link-16 fighter data link

One Response to “F-15M Stealth Eagle”

1. Porsha Salonia says:

   August 31, 2022 at 9:29 pm

   Saved as a favorite, I really like your blog!

   Reply

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