F 15 AIR COMBAT TRAINING
F 15 AIR COMBAT TRAINING, The Boeing formerly McDonnell Douglas F 15 Eagle is an American built all weather tactical fighter designed to gain and maintain air superiority in aerial combat It first flew in July 1972 A multimission avionics system includes a head up display HUD advanced radar inertial guidance system INS flight instruments ultra high frequency UHF communications and Tactical Air Navigation TACAN and Instrument Landing System ILS receivers It also has an internally mounted tactical electronic warfare system identification friend or foe system electronic countermeasures suite and a central digital computer The head up display projects through a combiner all essential flight information gathered by the integrated avionics system This display visible in any light condition provides the pilot information necessary to track and destroy an enemy aircraft without having to look down at cockpit instruments The F 15s versatile APG 63/70 Pulse Doppler radar system can look up at high flying targets and down at low flying targets without being confused by ground clutter It can detect and track aircraft and small high speed targets at distances beyond visual range down to close range and at altitudes down to treetop level The radar feeds target information into the central computer for effective weapons delivery For close in dogfights the radar automatically acquires enemy aircraft and this information is projected on the head up display The F 15s electronic warfare system provides both threat warning and automatic countermeasures against selected threats Because of the advanced electronics deployed on the F 15 the aircraft was given the nickname Starship by users The Eagle can be armed with combinations of four different air to air weapons: AIM 7F/M Sparrow missiles or AIM 120 AMRAAM advanced medium range air to air missiles on its lower fuselage corners AIM 9L/M Sidewinder or AIM 120 missiles on two pylons under the wings and an internal 20 mm Gatling gun in the right wing root