Boeing F-15XS "Next Eagle"

[CammNut]

So this is how I imagined things going when Boeing first presented the F-15X idea to the US Air Force.

General: "Son, take that piece of sh-t out of here and bring me something that can last longer than a frog pinned to a rock in the Texas sun"

Aide: "What the General means is a weapon system that can survive in a contested A2/AD battlespace."

General: "Come back with what he said or don't darken my door again."

Boeing: "Yes sir."

And thusly was the F-15XS born.






So the real backstory. I stumbled upon a half-completed Academy 1/72 F-15C model that I had stolen the tails from and felt sorry for it. I began wondering how easy it would be to modify it to the lambda wing platform Boeing favors for its stealthy designs. Quite easy, it turns out. But I couldn't stop there...



The changes nose to tail are: The inlets are reshaped from the F-15's complex variable-geometry intakes to F-22-style fixed caret inlets. The wing trailing edges are reshaped, the F-15's conical camber removed, and new sharper leading edges added to recover the lost wing area.





Conformal weapons bays are mounted under the wing roots. Low-observable axisymmetric nozzles are fitted to the General Electric F110 engines. Twin canted tails are installed. And the tailbooms are reshaped to house the electronic-warfare apertures in a more stealthy, edge-aligned profile.





The most complicated part of the modification was making the weapons bays. These are unique to the XS, and not based on the conformal fuel tanks carried by the F-15E. They started life as the upper (rocket-housing) halves of the propulsion nacelles on the Macross VF-14 (which were cut off to produce my Rockwell F-120 Strike Sabre). I got lazy and decided to only open the AIM-120 AMRAAM bay on one side and the AIM-9X Sidewider bay on the other. But you get the gist.



Colors and decals are from a Caracal F-16 Have Glass V "Dark Viper" sheet with a bit of F-22 and F-35 throw in, while keeping it as simple as possible. I think the end result has a plausible feel to it. And to me it's way better than that POS F-15X...

[kerick]

That's awesome! Best "stealthy" F-15 I've seen. 
What colors did you use? That might work for my RF-23 Black Widow recon build.

[Tophe]

Pleasant...

[Dizzyfugu]

The V tail looks odd, but I like the overall lines of it. Nice! 

[PR19_Kit]

The V tail looks odd......

Pure F-23, isn't it?

[scooter]

Excellent.  A Strike Eagle might look even sexier

[silverwindblade]

I... I think I'm in love <3
I love the F-15 already, and modified versions of it are one of my favourite things. This is glorious <3

[NARSES2]

That's really nice  Far better looking then the standard F.15 IMHO as well

[The Rat]

Where the heck is that 'gobsmacked' emoticon? 

[Mossie]

That's good.  Very good!

The V tail looks odd......

Pure F-23, isn't it?

I'm thinking there's some JSf influence there, the butterfly tail and  lambda wing look like McDD's JAST proposal

[CammNut]

Thanks folks. And, yes, here is my inspiration - my rare-as-rockinghorse McDonnell Douglas' JAST desk model

[jalles]

Wow, that is just outstanding! Fantastic job 

[Firefox]

Nice 

[Jesse220]

Woah!

[chrisonord]

I am  so liking this, hats off to you sir,  it looks so right  it really  does.
Chris