Boeing’s F-15 update, the F-15SE ‘Silent Eagle’ is still being developed.
June 26: Boeing’s F-15 update, the F-15SE ‘Silent Eagle’ designed to be a low-cost alternative to Lockheed Martin’s F-35, is still being developed despite no news released by the company for several months.
It recently completed wind tunnel tests on the Silent Eagle Conformal Weapons Bay (CWB) at its St Louis facility to validate the aerodynamics of the design.
“Boeing and its partners have advanced to the next phase in the development of the Silent Eagle, an evolved derivative of the combat-proven F-15 family of aircraft,” said Roger Besancenez, F-15 Program vice president for Boeing. “We are now testing production-representative hardware as we continue to validate our affordable and low-risk design.”
Boeing is partnering with Korea Aerospace Industries to design, develop and manufacture the CWB. The Silent Eagle is Boeing’s offer in the F-X competition for the Republic of Korea’s multirole fighter aircraft.
More detailed tests later this year will focus on the aerodynamic effects of multiple weapons loads, as well as opening and closing the upper and lower CWB doors.
Boeing this year also completed the final phase of Radar Cross Section (RCS) reduction tests to validate the aircraft’s production configuration. The CWBs can be reconfigured to Conformal Fuel Tanks (CFTs) to optimise the aircraft for longer ranges and increased weapons loading.
Silent Eagle also features enhanced avionics such as an integrated Active Electronically Scanned Array radar and Digital Electronic Warfare Suite.
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