Japan has just announced that the United States will send the latest F-15EX fighter jets to Okinawa to replace the F-15C D deployed there earlier to carry out the deterrence mission against China. However, the U.S. Air Force said on the 20th that Boeing had just delivered the third and fourth F-15EX fighters, more than a year behind schedule. This kind of collapse inevitably made the Japanese muttered in their hearts - when will they wait for the F-15EX to be stationed in Okinawa?Who else can it threaten then......
The third F-15EX has been delivered to the U.S. Air Force) According to the U.S. Air Force, the second batch of two F-15EXs was delivered to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida on the 20th, and the first two fighters of the same type were delivered as early as March-April 2021. In other words, in the two-and-a-half-year period that followed, Boeing delivered a total of two F-15EXs.
Boeing reportedly originally planned to deliver a third F-15EX in December 2022, although this is a year and a half after the U.S. Air Force received the first F-15EXs. But the uneasy Boeing continued to delay, and as a result, the third F-15EX did not make its maiden flight until October this year, and the delivery time was delayed until the end of the year.
The first two F-15EXs have been flying alone for two-and-a-half years) A report released earlier this year by the U.S. Accountability Office blamed manufacturing issues with Boeing and third-party vendors for delays in F-15EX deliveries, as well as budget issues caused by fluctuating procurement plans. Last year, the U.S. Air Force reduced its expected F-15EX procurement from "at least 144" to "80" and then increased that number to 104.
In this regard, the US Air Force also complained again and again. Boeing has pitted the US Air Force many times over the years, the most famous is the KC-46 tanker project, which was originally based on the mature model modification of the tanker, the result is not only excessive costs, continuous failures, but even more outrageous is that in the newly delivered aircraft metal skin found wrenches and other "exogenous foreign bodies", showing that Boeing's overall production management has serious problems. Originally, one of the important reasons why the U.S. Air Force chose the F-15EX as a non-** fighter earlier was that the aircraft was an improved version of the very mature F-15E fighter, and there was no need to build an additional production line, so it could be quickly mass-produced to replace the aging F-15C D fighter in service as soon as possible. It's just that no one thought that Boeing could do such a sloppy job.
Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the US Air Force decided to reduce the purchase of F-15EX earlier - this kind of non-** fighter ** is expensive, but it is "outdated when produced", it is difficult to undertake front-line combat missions, and in the future major power conflicts, it can only be miscellaneous for ** fighters such as F-22 and F-35. Now that the production speed can't even go up, why do you want it to do it?It's just that Boeing has deep connections in the Pentagon after all, and the US military still wants to retain Boeing's fighter development capabilities, so the F-15EX can continue its life.
It's just that Boeing's delay in delivering the F-15EX has made the US Air Force unprecedentedly embarrassed - the US Air Force promises that if it can receive four more F-15EX fighters between now and next July, it can declare the aircraft with initial combat capability. By way of comparison, the F-35A, which is also known for its delays, delivered 15 of them when they reached initial operational capability in 2016.
The F-15C, which was deployed in Okinawa earlier, is no match for the PLA's cutting-edge fighters) It is not only the US Air Force that is anxious. "Nikkei Asia" reported on the 18th that the unnamed "Congress*** revealed that the Pentagon plans to "permanently deploy 36 F-15EX fighters" at the Kadena base in Okinawa. At the beginning of this year, the U.S. Air Force announced the evacuation of 48 severely aging F-15C D fighter jets from the base, and both Japan** and the Pentagon** expressed "fear that this move will send a dangerous signal to China," believing that the US military abandoned this important forward base because of fears of PLA missile attacks -- this worry is indeed one of the considerations for the US military's move. Since then, the U.S. Air Force has begun to send F-35s, F-22s, and other fighter jets to Kadena in rotation as a temporary countermeasure to maintain the U.S. Air Force's main combat presence in the western Pacific region. The "permanent deployment of fighter jets" in Okinawa also sends a fairly clear message to any potential enemy compared to rotational deployment, according to the American "Power"**.
Boeing envisions that the F-15EX will command the unmanned wingman to cooperate in the operation) is just the author's opinion, although the F-15EX is claimed to be the "strongest F-15", it is still essentially a non-** fighter, but it has been modified with some fifth-generation fighter technology, and it is difficult to deal with the PLA's J-20** fighter, at most it is roughly equivalent to the J-16 fighter modified with the same idea. The U.S. Air Force is also well aware of the limitations of the F-15EX, and was originally planned to replace the old F-15 of the U.S. National Guard in the continental U.S. National Guard, or as an air-launch platform for super-large munitions such as hypersonic**, as well as to use the two-seat advantage to command unmanned wingmen to operate together in future conflicts.
More importantly, the number of advanced fighter jets in China far exceeds the expectations of the United States, according to US estimates, China already has more than 200 J-20** fighters, and the number of production will continue to increase in the future. In comparison, the annual production of the F-15EX is in the pitiful single digits, and neither in terms of quality nor quantity, can be compared with the advanced fighters of the PLA. Japan is really daydreaming that it can deter China by stationing only 36 F-15EX fighters in Okinawa.
Of course, what makes Japan even more sad is that now with the collapse of Boeing, this daydream can't be done......