Tuesday, December 27, 2011

F-15SE Silent Eagle

              The Boeing F-15SE Silent Eagle is a proposed upgrade of the F-15E by Boeing using stealth features, such as internal weapons carriage and radar-absorbent material.

A demonstration version of the F-15SE was first displayed by Boeing on 17 March 2009. The F-15SE will use fifth generation fighter technologies to reduce its radar cross-section RCS. Distinguishing features of this version are the conformal weapons bays CWB that replace the conformal fuel tanks CFT to hold weapons internally and the twin vertical tails canted outward 15 degrees to reduce radar cross section. Weapons storage takes the place of most of each CWB fuel capacity. This variant will also have radar absorbing material where needed. The Silent Eagle is aimed at current F-15 users such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea, among others.
The F-15SE is to have the level of stealth allowed for export by the US government. Boeing has stated that this stealth will only be in the range of fifth generation aircraft such as the F-35 Lightning II from the frontal aspect. The F-15SE will have a Raytheon AESA radar, and a new electronic warfare system from BAE Systems.[8] This stealth will be optimized for air to air missions against X-band radars and much less effective against ground based radars which use other frequencies.

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